Japanese Pork Curry Donburi

For a year, many bloggers have been celebrating the Malaysian Food Fest together which was made possible by Wendy. With the end of Malaysian Food Fest, we now have Asian Food Fest ("AFF") which is made in celebration of us cooking different types of food all over Asia for our families, loved ones and friends. I'm getting excited already about the food - Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Singaporean and so much more.

The 1st country to be featured for October is Japan!! I bet many of you love Japanese food. To me, food from Japan is not only tasty but mainly it's very pleasing and catching to the eye. If you would have noticed in Japanese cuisine, presentation and how the food looks plays a big part apart from the exquisite taste of the food. If you would notice, I'm trying to take better pictures and also, feature more than just the end product.

For my first recipe for AFF, I'm going to make a simple pork curry donburi! Today is a rainy day which is perfect for this as well. 

I love how simple this recipe from Nami at Just One Cookbook looks. For simplicity, I'll state the recipe below together with my modifications in blue.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups dashi stock
• 1 medium onion, sliced
• 2 small carrots, chopped into cubes
• 1/2 small pumpkin, chopped into cubes
• 1 packet pork belly, cut into 1 inch slices
• 2-3 6 cubes Japanese curry roux
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• green onions, chopped
• cooked rice

Method:

1. In a large non-stick frying pan, heat oil on medium heat and saute onion.
2. Add the carrots and pumpkin and stir fry till fairly cooked.
3. Add the pork and cook on medium high heat until it's no longer raw or pink in colour.
4. Add dashi stock and bring it to a boil. Turn the heat to medium low.
5. Add Japanese curry roux and mix until completely dissolved.
6. Cover the pan with a lid for a few minutes till it comes to a boil. 
7. When the soup starts to thicken, add soy sauce and mix well.
8. In a serving bowl, put the cooked rice and pour the curry over the rice.
9. Garnish with green onions and serve immediately.

Literally on a weekday night, this is a perfect dish especially if you are working and you just want to have simple comfort food to dull the midweek blues away :) I love the texture that the dashi stock has given to the Japanese curry roux. Having said that, I have to admit that I have never ever used dashi stock lest cook it from scratch myself. Yes, I cheated by using dashi stock sachets but nevertheless, it turned out to be very tasty. I would definitely use dashi stock again and perhaps even attempt to cook it from scratch for that oomph flavour.

Mr G was pretty delighted to see curry served at the dinner table!! Best of all, it has vegetables like pumpkin and carrots with their goodness and pork as the protein. So it's definitely a win-win situation for a well-balanced meal. Mr G gave the thumbs up and we finished that whole pot of curry for dinner. Slurps!!

Personal Notes:

• You may cook dashi broth from scratch or purchase dashi stock granules or sachets and boil them with water to obtain the dashi broth.

I'm submitting this post to Asian Food Fest #1 Oct 2013: Japan, hosted by Alan from travelling foodies.