Romesh’s Beef/Chicken Curry and Coconut Rice:

My friend Romesh is from Sri Lanka. He insists the only two things he learned how to cook his entire life is chicken/beef curry and coconut rice so he cooks this every time I come over. Good thing it tastes amazing!



Romesh’s beef/chicken curry:
Ingredients:
1 lb meat: bonless chicken breast chopped or beef chopped or bone-in chicken thighs
-salt to taste
-1/2 can coconut milk
-1/2 cup soy sauce
-oinions cut into slices
-2 tablesppons curry powder
-black pepper to taste
-1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
-oil to fry

In a pot with a lid heat oil and add chicken/beef...fry for several minutes, just long enough to brown slightly on the outside...then add all other ingredients except for the coconut milk. Cover with lid and simmer for 10 minutes. Add coconut milk, mix and simmer for another several minutes.

Romesh’s Rice:
Basmati rice - cooked
1-2 eggs scrambled
Green scallions chopped
Dash of coconut milk

Cook rice and set aside. Lightly scramble eggs in frying pan, add scallions and cook for one minute. Add rice and mix. Add coconut milk to taste.

Enjoy:)

Mrs. Nomura's Japanese Curry

I’m so lucky to have friends from other countries and occasionally they share their family’s recipes with me. The following is a recipe shared by my friend Togo. It's the one recipe that his mother sent him off to college with. It calls for a package curry roux. This can be found in any asian store and they are even starting to sell the milder version in Publix here in Florida. This is the kind my friend recommends :

S&B Golden Curry – I recommend the hot version as it is not very spicy and the milder versions don’t have much taste to me.


Ingredients:

-one block curry roux (usually there are two in a box)
-carrots sliced into long, thin, bite size pieces
-one yellow onion sliced in long strips
-one or two bell peppers of any color sliced in long pieces
-one whole head of garlic peeled
-one cube of either chicken or beef stock
-meat of your choice: chicken, beef or pork will do (I love chicken so that’s what I usually use) chopped into bite sized pieces
-olive oil to fry

1. Fry meat of choice in olive oil until cooked medium (you are going to simmer this meat so it doesn’t/should be cooked all the way through)


2. Add veggies and garlic and fry for about 2 minutes


3. Fill frying pan with water – only enough to cover contents of frying pan and no more. Crush cube of chicken or beef stock into water and cover. Let simmer on low for 20 minutes.

This is what it should look like before you simmer it....mmmm....chocolate peppers, my fav!

4. After 20 minutes take off cover and look at amount of water in pan…it should have reduced to about ¾ the amount of water…if not you may want to disgard some of the water.


5. Crumble block of curry roux into water and stir well…if not you will have chunks of curry in your meal.

6. Let simmer for 5 minutes and remove from heat. Let stand only a few minutes…Sauce will thicken as it stands.

Mmmm...finished product!

You can serve this meal with either rice or Japanese Udon noodles (I love the noodles personally, they are pretty salty though). If you were eating this dish in Japan a main dish of the curry would be placed in the center of the table and everyone would be given a bowl of rice. You would just grab what you wanted with chop sticks and add to rice as you go. I personally love the sauce and ladle it over my rice or noodles….

If you have any leftovers I recommend making curry bread…so delicious!
You can stop by closetcooking.blogspot.com they have a great recipe for curry bread.