Yokosuka Kaigun-kare
Yokosuka Navy Curry
Curry was introduced to Japan through the Japanese navy, which adopted it to provide needed vitamin B-1 to its sailors. With time, it evolved into the delicious and satisfying curry which now forms a staple of every schoolchild's lunch - and which I cooked when I explored Japanese food in general. But the original curry recipe from the Navy, as published in the 1908 guide "Naval Kappou Jutsu Reference Book," has made a reappearance at restaurants in the Kanto city of Yokosuka and has now become known as "Yokosuka Navy Curry". To be considered authentic, it must served with white rice, a salad and a glass of milk - a complete meal for a hungry sailor.
It was an interesting meal to make. The ingredients and proportions did not make sense to me when I saw them on paper - but the whole dish came together well. This wasn't the best curry I've had, I think modern Japanese versions which incorporate a fruity/sweet element are far superior, both in flavor and nutrition, but it was pretty satisfying and if you hadn't had curry before, I can see why it would have helped create a craze for curry.
Unfortunately, this Navy curry was also extremely expensive to make - I spent about $30 (in 2022) just for the fat, curry powder, veal stock and dashi powder. The beef and vegetables - the heart of the meal - probably added less than $10 themselves (but I bought the beef chuck on sale). The recipe does say it feeds six people, and judging by the amount of leftovers, I do believe it does. The sauce is extremely rich, so you can only eat so much of it, and the rice and salad (and milk) helps fill you up. Still, it does seem excessively expensive for a curry. Of course, you could make it far cheaper if you bastardized it and used lard instead of beef tallow, beef stock instead of veal stock, and Indian curry powder (which you can buy cheaply at Indian stores) instead of Japanese.
Indeed, while I did use most of the authentic ingredients, I substituted ghee for the beef tallow. I had originally thought I'd render my own fat, as the recipe called for, but there just isn't enough of it attached to beef chuck for the amounts required. Ghee, which I had at hand, seemed to be the best substitute, though I added a little bit of beef base after melting it, to give it more of that tallow flavor (a trick I learned from McDonald's).
In all, this was an interesting recipe to make - I now understand what those Japanese curry bricks are all about -, though not one I'd hurry to make again.
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Yokosuka Navy Curry
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups beef tallow, lard or ghee,
- 5 Tbsp flour
- 3 oz S & B curry
- 12 oz beef chuck, cut into 1/2" cubes
- salt & pepper to taste
- 1 lb onions, peeled and cut into 3/4" pieces
- 1 lb potatoes, peeled and cut into 3/4" pieces
- 8 oz carrots, peeled and cut into 3/4" pieces
- 5 cups veal stock
- .7 oz (2 packets) umani broth dashi powder
- 1 tsp chutney
Directions
Prepare the curry paste. Melt half of the beef tallow in a small sauce pan over low heat. Whisk in the flour and cook until it bubbles. Add the curry powder and mix well. Turn off heat and set aside.
Season beef with salt and pepper.
Melt the remaining beef tallow in a large pot over high heat. Add the onions and cook for three minutes. Add the beef and cook, stirring frequently, until it browns on all sides. Add the potatoes and carrots and cook for 2 minutes. Stir, reduce heat to medium and continue cooking for 6 minutes. Add the veal stock, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 20-40 minutes, or until the beef and vegetables are soft. Add the dashi and the chutney, mix well, taste and adjust seasoning.
Serve with rice, a salad and a glass of milk.
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Adapted from a recipe at Food in Japan
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