March 30, 2009

Curry Udon/カレーうどん

For supper last night, my wife made curry. For lunch today, my daughter and I had the leftover curry, and we had this much left in the pot.
昨日の夕飯には妻がカレーを作りました。今日の昼食には、私は娘と残りのカレーを食べました。そして鍋にこれだけ残りました。

Then, I thought, "We don't have enough leftover rice. Why not make curry udon with this?" So, I added to the pot: 1 liter of water, 1 onion, 1 chicken breast, and some enoki mushroom. I also added about 90 ml each of soy sauce and mirin, and 1 1/2 tsp of instant dashi. I simmered the curry for 10 min.
私は思いました、「ご飯の残りが少ない。これでカレーうどんでも作ろうか?」そこで、鍋に水を1リットル、玉ねぎ1、鶏の胸肉1、エノキを少し入れました。また、しょう油とみりんを約90 mlづつ、出汁の素を小さじ1 1/2入れました。カレーを10分煮ました。
Will I use the expensive udon that my father gave me the other day (left one) or the cheap one that I bought at the 100-yen shop (right one)? I chose the cheap one.
父が先日くれた高価なうどん(左側)を使うか、100円ショップで買った安いやつを使うか?安いほうを選びました。

Curry udon made by using leftover curry:
残りのカレーを使って作ったカレーうどん:

As I said elsewhere, the use of soy sauce (and mirin and dashi) can make any dish taste Japanese.
別の場所で述べたように、しょう油(そしてみりんと出汁)を使うと、どんな料理も和風になります。

5 comments:

Mama said...

That looks very good! I love curry with spaghetti, too.

It's interesting the difference in what we call "udon." Here in the US, my impression of udon has always been a thicker noodle.

http://shop.mitsuwa.com/img/detail/tn/001066.jpg

Hiroyuki said...

pink: Dried udon is much thinner than freshly made, refrigerated, and frozen udon, and is usually the cheapest!

As you may know, there are three types of wheat noodles in Japan: Udon, hiyamugi, and somen. Udon is the thickest, and somen is the thinnest.

Mama said...

That's very interesting, Hiroyuki. I always thought we had a pretty good Japanese food supply in the US, but I guess I was wrong. Thanks for sharing this little tidbit. :)

Stacy D said...

I want to try to make something similar to this.. although it's very hard to find Udon noodles in Canada. I can only buy pre-cooked udon and it's not very good.

Although, I did find a specialty store to buy mirin and bonito dashi!! I will try to make some beginner japanese dishes.

Hiroyuki said...

Stacy: Thanks for your comments. It's not hard to make fresh udon noodles at home. Here is an example of how to make it:
http://japanesefood.about.com/od/udon/ss/makingudonsteps.htm
It's good to know that mirin and bonito dashi (you mean instant dashi?) are available where you live. When buying soy sauce, make sure you buy Japanese soy sauce. I hope you succeed in making your first Japanese dishes!