Nagoya Cochin Curry

Thank you Nagoya!

Spice:  6 out of 10 
Rating: 9.5 out of 10


Today's curry is served with a side of history. As you can see by the rating I loved this curry, but first let's get to our brief history lesson. One great thing about food is that you can learn a lot about the culture and history of the society where it originated when you eat. This is why you can goto a Japanese, Italian, Greek, Mexican, Thai, etc restaurant and you'll find vastly different food.  There is a lot of culture behind Japanese food and it all ties in with the rest of Japanese society - however, the only things I'm ever going to get into on this blog are about Japanese culture and/or history as it relates to Japanese Curry. 


This curry is thanks to the delicious Nagoya Cochin Chicken. I had never heard of this breed of chicken before - actually I can't name any other breed of chicken. I'm not an expert on chicken breeds, I just eat them! It's only because my wife told me that this curry was made from a special kind of chicken that I ever found out about it.  


This is where not being able to really read Japanese and choosing a curry based purely on the box gets interesting.  Anyway, I was intrigued about this 'special chicken' after I'd eaten the curry and decided it was time to visit my good friend Google. This is how I learned that Nagoya is known for their heirloom breed of chicken known as the Nagoya Cochin. 

I taste wonderful!

The Nagoya Cochin chicken is apparently a famous breed of chicken according to the internet.  In fact, Nagoya is known for it's dishes made from this breed of chicken.  There are entire restaurants in Nagoya devoted solely to different dishes cooked from the Nagoya Cochin. Normally you can't eat raw poultry, but you can apparently eat Nagoya Cochin sashimi!  This breed originally came into existence during the Meiji era by crossing a local Nagoya breed with a Chinese breed of chickens called the Cochin Buff. These chickens became popular because they laid a large number of eggs and their meat was especially tasty (I can attest to this). 

When other breeds that grew much faster were brought to Japan after World War II there was a potential crisis that could have wiped out the breed. Instead, these prized chickens were saved (THANK YOU) by the Poultry Institute of the Aichi Agricultural Research Center which raised awareness of the high quality flavor and low fat content of the meat compared to the more mass-produced breeds which I assume came from the United States. 

This breed is also different from mass-bred chickens in that they take about 2.5 times longer to mature than other chicken breeds.  In line with Kobe beef these chickens are allowed to roam freely and are not kept in cages. I personally think this has a lot to do with how good they taste - I believe ANY breed of any animal will taste better if they are allowed to live as they were meant to rather than be force-fed in a tiny cage until they are slaughtered.  In addition they weigh less than other chickens and so the meat costs about 4 times more than other chicken meat.  I will happily pay 4 times as much for some of this chicken when I'm in Japan! Not on a day-to-day basis, but every now and then I'd say splurge on the Nagoya Cochin!! ^_^  

I need to goto Nagoya next time I visit Japan so that I can try this meat fresh, because in a prepared package of curry which has a bunch of preservatives in it it was still AMAZING.  Enough learning, let's get to the curry!

♡o｡.(✿ฺ｡ ✿ฺ)

When I first opened the package of curry I was greeted by the most the most wonderful smell. If heaven exists it might smell a little bit like this. It's the best smelling curry I've ever had that was not cooked fresh at home or in a restaurant. In fact, it smelled better than a lot of curry I've had in restaurants. 


The curry itself tasted great.  It was creamy, had a nice medium level of spice, and had a hint of a rustic - almost smokey flavor to it. Not the kind of smokey that over powers the food and makes you feel like you're eating next to a campfire. It was subtle, and it was that extra bit of flavor that drove this over the edge into the realm of not just great curry, but GREAT CURRY. 


The balance between spice and smokey rustic flavors was perfect. It was balanced better than most peoples' check books!  Then there was the creamy aspect.  I've never had curry that I would describe as 'creamy' before.  I want more, there has to be others.  It tasted like a tomato based cream. Not quite to the extreme as an alfredo sauce, but to the level that a Japanese dish would borrow the "creaminess" from an Italian dish and make something wholly Japanese. The ability to take something from one culture and then change into something more in line with Japanese culture and pass it off as their own is one thing that I love about Japan, but that's a whole other topic.  Another thing I love about Japan is that you can buy Nagoya Cochin Curry in a supermarket! 


This curry is just about perfect for a store bought curry. There is nothing wrong with it except that it wasn't in a package 10 times larger.  If you're in Japan stop reading this blog and go get yourself some of this curry!

I was very sad to see this
｡゜(｀Д´)゜｡

Currysan's Spicy Surf n Turf Curry recipe

My spicy surf n turf curry

Spice: 8 out of 10 
Rating: 9 out of 10

Another day, another curry!  I've been eating a lot of beef curry lately so I decided that I wanted something different for the protein in this newest batch of curry.  I thought "I never use tofu, should I try now?" No. Chicken? Sounds great! Shrimp? This also sounds great! 

So the question is how do you choose between the shrimp and chicken when they both sound good?  The answer was simple, I don't have to choose - it's time to make a surf n turf curry!  I decided that not only would this be tasty, but it'll be fun to make a themed curry every now and then.  This is my first one, but I'm sure I'll think of others in the future.  Does anyone out there have an idea for a themed curry to try?

This curry was great!  I think this may be one of the best I've ever made.  The spice level was really good although I was trying to go a tiny bit spicier than it came out. This was the kind of spice that builds as you eat more. It didn't burn the tongue but I found that as I ate more my body temperature began to rise, I started to sweat a little, and the back of my throat started to feel it. I was generous with the cajun spice blend and I'm glad I was!  Plus, I think mixing the hot versions of curry from two companies made a really nice blend of spicy flavors.  

I was loving this curry from the first bite. It had spice, it had a ton of flavor, and it was great getting both chicken and shrimp to taste. I found that the best bites had both a piece of chicken AND a shrimp in the spoon. It was amazing and a really nice combination. The only thing that might have made this even more incredible would be to have it all fried as I love katsu curry!

I think it's time to make some curry only using one brand of curry to really get a feel for the flavor of each one. This will help me eventually make the ultimate curry! You need to know your ingredients, so I need to get back to basics.

If you want a great protein-full curry, this is it! I definitely recommend this over the previous recipe I posted. I'll be making a curry like this again for sure!

  

Ingredients
2 yellow onions
2 large carrots
1 red bell pepper
4 oz sliced mushrooms
1 lb cooked shrimp
1 lb chicken breast cubed
2 cups chicken broth
8 fingerling potatoes
1 cut sweet peas
2 Tbsp ketchup
Urban Accents cajun spice burger blend to taste
Golden Curry Hot
Java Curry Hot




This makes a very large amount of curry - I froze half of it for later and happily ate it for dinner for a few days. 

How I cooked it

First I prepared all of the vegetables and meat.  Then I cooked the onions, chicken, and potatoes in the pot and sprinkled on the cajun burger blend to taste.  I was generous with this blend so that the chicken and potatoes would have some spiciness regardless of whether it was in a curry or not. Then, once the onions were browned I added 2 cups of chicken broth, 3.5 cups of water, the carrots, pepper, and sweet peas. I brought it to a boil and then lowered the heat to medium and let it cook for 20 minutes. 

Then I ran out of time as I was meeting people to see a movie.  So I left the half-cooked curry covered on the stove for 4.5 hours while I went to the movie and then dinner with coworkers. When I got back I reheated the food and added the curry stock, ketchup, and shrimp and let it cook on low heat for another 20 minutes.  

As I had already had dinner I wasn't hungry but I had to at least try a bite - it was great! Since I wasn't going to be eating I just left it covered on the stove until I left for work the next morning.  When I was at work I left it in the pot inside the fridge and I reheated it on the stove for one of the better curry dinners I've had the pleasure of eating.  :D

Second Chance: Kuroge wagyu (Japanese black beef) chokotto beef curry from Sanda-ya Souhonke

This time with the correct amount of properly cooked rice!

Category: Store Bought (From Japan)

Flavor:  6 out of 10

Spice: 1 out of 10

The other night I got home from work kind of late and I wasn't very hungry. I did want to have a little something for dinner though, and I didn't feel like cooking.  There were not many choices and so I realized it was the perfect time to give the chokotto curry a second chance!  I had a little bit of rice made (properly this time) from the other day so I heated it up, put the curry into some boiling water, and 5 minutes later I was tasting kuroge wagyu (Japanese black beef) chokotto beef curry for the second time - but trying to keep an open mind as if it was my first time. 

My initial reaction was "Mmmmm, this is quite nice". A very different reaction, but this time I was eating this curry under the proper conditions.  I wasn't very hungry and only wanted a small portion and this time it turned out it was the perfect amount.  

There still wasn't a lot of beef, but it seemed like a little more. Rather, the beef was cut into smaller pieces, so while it may have been the same amount I felt less cheated. I would have liked more meat and more vegetables, but it wasn't such a big deal since I wasn't very hungry.  This time everything just seemed acceptable.  It still had absolutely no spice to it but the flavor was nice.  

I think this is great for when you want a small meal, don't want to put any effort into it, and don't really care for something really delicious.  Last time I used a scale of 1-5, but I've been using 1-10 in later reviews so this time it gets a 6 out of 10.  An upgrade from the previous review, but still not among the kings of curry.