Nyam Recipes – Japanese Curry

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By popular demand, I’m going to share a recipe close to my heart. Many friends have loved it and sometimes I feel if I had my own food business in another life, this would be one of my jewels. But nevertheless, I’m just trying to create my own perfect CoCo Ichibanya curry in my spare time. It can be either a meat, seafood or vegetarian curry but for this recipe, I’m going to do a meat base.

If you ever make with seafood, I recommend Ebikatsu (Breaded Shrimp Portion). Hope you enjoy using the recipe to make a good Nyam dish!

Ingredients (Serves 3-4)

Sliced Chicken breast fillets
Curry Roux/Blocks (Java Curry or Golden Curry Flakes is highly recommended)
Basamati/Sushi Rice (preferably)
1 Onion
2 pieces of Garlic
1 Teaspoon of: salt, white pepper, black pepper, mixed herbs or oregano, parsley and thyme
2-3 Chili peppers
2-3 tablespoons of Gochujang (Brand: CJ taeyangcho, SP Sunchang )
4 Potatoes
3 Carrots
Baby corn, parsnips, pumpkin (Optional vegetables)
Fukujinzuke
Tablespoon of plain flour (optional)
White sesame seeds
Cheese (Grated mozarella is best)
Bonus – CoCo壱番屋　芳醇ソース (CoCo Ichibanya Hojun sauce)

How-to Recipe

Firstly cut up the sliced chicken breast fillets into tiny cubes and place in a hot pot with oil. While it is cooking make sure to cut up the onion, garlic, chili peppers, potatoes, carrots and any extra vegetables.
After the meat is getting browner, please add the garlic, onion, chili peppers and carrots. I personally think the carrots and peppers provide some extract juice so there’s no need for extra oil while cooking.
Once everything is browning and cooking, please add water to be the same level of the food. Add the potatoes and vegetables to the pot and if the water is still low, allow a little more than usual to cover the line of the food. Please wait at least 20 minutes for it all to boil especially the potatoes to be nice and soft.
At this point, I would recommend adding your rice to cook as it will take the same amount of time as finishing off the curry will take. The reason why I say Basmati or Sushi Rice is because it brings a nice finish to your curry. The latter is better however I would only recommend using unless you have a rice cooker in your house. For both pictures on this page, I have used Basmati Rice.
While the rice is cooking, please add two curry blocks at first. This will dissolve slowly and bring about a good smell with the mixture of vegetables and meat to your curry. Add two more if it is quite watery.
Add the seasoning as listed above and mix in together. Once stirred in, add the spoons of Gochujang to the curry to add a spicier flavour.
Serve with the cooked rice and add white sesame seeds as a nice finish to your curry. Fukujinzuke should be served on the side of the rice (either is fine, you can also cover the rice as the above picture shows).
For cheese lovers: I believe if you really want to use cheese, you should serve your curry, add a layer of cheese then a layer of curry on top of it. That way it melts on its own and blends in with the curry taste. It should also be one of the last things to put in your curry.

For the optional choices

Flour is only necessary if you used too much water. If you have used too much water and very little, you’re gonna need to increase the amount of curry roux and add flour in order to achieve that thicker curry taste to your dish. This is why I usually say to use less water from the very beginning because well, less is more.

Sesame seeds is more a matter of a final touch, not necessary. Please use white and not black sesame seeds. They look really nice on a dish as you can see above so it’s a matter of whether you want to add and if you also have to be cautious of people with sesame allergy.

Have CoCo Ichibanya’s Hojun (CoCo壱番屋　芳醇ソース) sauce with your dish. What is Hojun sauce? It is a fermented sauce that is often given with CoCo Ichibanya’s handmade dishes such as tonkatsu or zanmai (三昧) dishes to bring a compatible taste (you can request to have even without some of these dishes in store).