Washoku Lovers Kitchen featuring Japanese Curry from Midnight Diner (Japanese Film Festival) Sponsored by Daiso Supported by Tokyo Mart
The Japanese Film Festival is going to be held in Sydney and Parramatta from 5th November to 15th November and Midnight Diner will be featured on the 6th November. To celebrate, we were invited to the second Washoku Lover's Kitchen event to make Japanese Curry from Midnight Diner at Culinary Studio Dekura. Sponsored by Daiso and supported by Tokyo Mart.
We learnt how to make Japanese curry from scratch! There is a difference between Japanese, Indian and Thai curries. Japanese curry usually have a thicker-sauce like consistency and varies between different shades of brown in colour. The common Japanese curry is similar to that of the Golden Curry brand, but to our surprise we learnt to make a different type of Japanese curry.
Different curries can all come in many flavours and contain a number of different ingredients. Traditionally, curry is a mixture of staples to help provide a cheap source of sustenance for families trying to survive the harsh winter nights. A mixture of carbohydrates and vitamins would definitely warm up my stomach!
Lucky we are fortunate enough to be able to experiment with Japanese Curry, and we were given a treat tonight! We never knew how many ingredients could go into a single curry serving. Did you know you can add Mango as an ingredient?! You can find the detailed recipe on Washoku Lovers (will open up as a PDF file)
Here's to a great home cooked meal with Japanese curry, salad and sides.
Japanese Salad
Matt is a huge fan of Japanese salad (especially the dressing). Fun Fact: We found out that the seaweed you often find in udon/salad is called Wakame. It's actually sold in dry form which needs to be soaked in water before use.
Japanese Curry
This was a lovely team effort and was enjoyable with a fizzy yuzu drink. The curry wasn't too rich in flavour, meaning there is always more room for more. Eating the curry felt satisfying, as a sense of accomplishment parades over you after the hours spent in the kitchen. Well worth the effort!
Hideo Dekura's perfectly presented Japanese Curry.
Fukujinzuke
Christie doesn't usually like pickles but she couldn't get enough! It was sweet, sour and had a great crunch. This side is perfectly paired with the Japanese Curry as it gave it that little boost of flavour.
Rakyo
After eating curry I would usually feel quite bloated and reach for my fat pants. However after tonight's meal, we were fit and ready for a 20 minute walk back to the station! I later found out that Rakyo is said to prevent the feeling of a bloated stomach when you eat too much curry rice!
You can find the above side dishes from Tokyo Mart in Northbridge Plaza (a leading retailer of Japanese groceries and is famous for its variety of products very similar to supermarkets in Japan)
Thank you again Daiso for the wonderful gifts! We received a cute lunchbox with a separator for your rice and curry. An awesome peeler probably invented for lazy people like me! It's so comfortable shaped like a computer mouse. A specially designed spoon which is great for Japanese curry, a heavy duty bowl and finally, a rice separator when you wash your rice (very common in Asian households)! I personally love Daiso products because EVERYTHING is $2.80 (in Australia) - talk about real savings right? Thank you again DAISO for the quality products.
A warm thank you to Yuri from Washoku Lovers and Hideo Dekura for a well hosted comfortable evening at Culinary Studio Dekura for the second Washoku Lovers Kitchen featuring Japanese Curry from Midnight Diner (Japanese Film Festival). Have you read our first Washoku Lover's Kitchen experience? If not, you can read all about it here