Supermeow!

I bought like eight thousand vegetables earlier in the week at the Tuesday veggie market, now it’s time to put them to use!

Maybe someday I'll get good at making things look like they taste good in photographs...

The week before this past week, I bought a slow cooker on sale at Target that was recommended as an okay slow cooker by both Cooks Illustrated and Consumer Reports. Last week’s slow cooker breaking-in was pork shoulder. Today, I’m making Japanese-style curry. I used Golden Curry blocks (two packages – medium and hot, and hot isn’t at all hot in my opinion), and I threw in a ton of veggies: onion, green bell pepper, carrots, zucchini, and eggplant (which I’ve discovered doesn’t seem to do too well in a slow cooker). I also threw in ginger, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, 3 bay leaves, and white miso. The protein/meat flavor comes from bone-in chuck steaks and bone-in pork chops (pan-seared first in olive oil with salt, pepper, and garlic powder). There is chicken and beef broth in there, too. It’s been cooking since noon, and it’s quarter of six as I write this. The meat’s starting to fall off bones (I had to fish a couple of bones out already) If I wanted to break it down into a recipe:

Japanese-style Curry Magic!

• 1.5 lbs. bone-in chuck steak
• 1.5 lbs bone-in pork chops
• Salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste for above
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 green bell peppers, diced
• 2 medium carrots, sliced into 1/4″ coins
• 2 zucchini, diced
• 1 medium-large eggplant, diced
• 1 finger ginger, cut into large chunks
• 2-3 bay leaves
• 1 cup ketchup
• 1-2 dashes Worcestershire sauce
• 1-2 tablespoons miso paste
• 1/2 aseptic container of your favorite chicken broth (or ~4 cups, homemade or otherwise)
• 1/2-3/4 aseptic container of your favorite beef broth (or ~4-6 cups, homemade or otherwise, depending on how thick you like your curry)
• 2 packages Japanese curry roux (like the small sized ones)

Directions:

1. Preheat large nonstick pan on medium-high heat, and add about a tablespoon of olive oil to the pan. When oil is hot, throw in your meat to sear, about 5 minutes on each side. Set aside. There should be meat-residue left in the pan, which I assure you is essential to the success of this curry, in my opinion.
2. Add another tablespoon of oil or so back into the pan and add your diced onions, carrots, and bell peppers. Salt to your preference. When onions seem soft, add eggplant and zucchini. The salt will sweat the veggies and get the crystallized meat-bits off of the pan. Eeeeexcellent!
3. Add the veggies to your slow cooker with some chicken broth, beef broth, ketchup, miso, ginger, and bay leaves. Mix. Turn your slow cooker on and add your pieces of curry roux. When the roux is dissolved, add the meat. Cover and set the slow cooker for 4 hours on high (I actually added my meat first and discovered that was a mistake – add the meat after you’ve dealt with the veggies/cooking liquid).
4. After 4 hours, check on your curry. You may need to skim some fat off of the surface or fish out bones. Blech. You’ll also notice that there’s a ton of new liquid in there because nothing really evaporates in a slow cooker. I think it makes its own water. It is a mystery.
5. Set the slow cooker for another couple of hours if you are not satisfied with the texture of the meat, which I personally feel should fall apart when you look at it funny. You’ll also notice that eggplant was probably a bad idea and wish you hadn’t included it at this point, or maybe not used globe eggplant, or something.
6. Sit down at computer to write recipe for incomplete recipe. Wonder if this is a bad idea, decide you’re feeling impulsive and also sort of bored from making curry all day. Wish that Law & Order: SVU was on.
7. In the future, the curry should be done and super-delicious. You suspect that you’ll need to skim more fat, and you’ll need to fish out the bones, bay leaves, and ginger chunks. Discard these.
8. Serve curry over rice. Makes like ten thousand 1.5-cup servings or what you estimate to be about 5-ish quarts of curry.

That’s not a very good recipe. I don’t care. This blog needs CONTENT!