Chicken Katsu Curry

Ingredients – Serves 2

4 chicken breasts, skinless

250g rice

3 lightly beaten eggs

100 g plain flour

140 g panko breadcrumbs

Bag of mixed salad leaves

Vegetable oil for deep frying

Katsu curry sauce

2 finely chopped onions

4 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tsp turmeric powder

1 tbsp grated fresh ginger

3 crushed garlic clove s

200 ml coconut milk

500 ml vegetable or chicken stock

2 tbsp plain flour

4 tbsp mild curry powder

2 tsp soft brown sugar

2 tsp light soy sauce

Method

Katsu Sauce

Add the vegetable oil to a medium saucepan over a medium heat until it starts to shimmer.

Add the garlic, onions, and ginger and cook for around 10 minutes until the onion has softened. Turn the heat down to low.

Add the turmeric and curry powder and stir the pan gently until everything is thoroughly mixed.

Sir in the flour to thicken the sauce and cook for one minute.

Gradually pour in the vegetable stock, stirring continuously until thoroughly mixed.

Stir in the coconut milk in the same way. You can add more coconut milk if you prefer the sauce creamier, but make sure to add it gradually while stirring constantly.

When everything is mixed together, add the brown sugar and soy sauce.

Give everything a final stir to make sure it’s all mixed together and leave the pan on as low a heat as possible while you move on to preparing the rice and chicken. You’re just wanting the sauce to keep it’s temperature at this point without cooking any more.

Check the instructions for the rice to see if it needs to be rinsed or not, then add to a suitably sized pan with plenty of cold water. Don’t turn the heat on just yet.

Put the oven on a low heat, 120F or thereabouts. This will be to keep the cooked chicken pieces warm while the rice is prepared later.

Chicken Breasts

Add enough vegetable oil to a reasonably sized wok to allow the chicken pieces to be completely submerged in the oil.

You want the pan on a medium heat, but not too high. The aim is to have the oil at the right temperature that the chicken pieces have enough time to cook through without the breadcrumbs getting burned. Unfortunately, this is going to be different for every combination of cooker and pan, so it’s just something you have to learn by trial and error.

Remove all visible fat from the chicken breasts and cut each one lengthways into 2 pieces. When they’re all prepared and ready to be deep fried, turn the heat on under the pan of rice.

Taking a couple of pieces of chicken at a time, roll them in plain flour, coat with the beaten egg and then roll in the breadcrumbs until thoroughly covered.

Put the chicken pieces in the hot oil for 2 or 3 minutes, turning carefully with a pair of tongs until the breadcrumbs are the right colour. Put the 2 cooked pieces into an ovenproof dish or a tinfoil lined baking tray.

Stir the Katsu sauce pan to prevent a skin forming on top.

Stir the rice to make sure it’s not sticking to the pan. Tip: add a half teaspoon of olive oil to the pan of rice. It doesn't affect the flavour, but helps stop the rice from sticking to the bottom of the pan as it cooks.

Move on to the next couple of chicken pieces. Repeat the process of deep frying and stirring both pans until all of the chicken is cooked.

Cover the cooked chicken pieces with tinfoil and put them in the oven to stay warm.

Give the Katsu sauce a final stir. You have a decision to make at this point. You can sieve the sauce to completely remove all of the onion pieces. You could leave all the onion in and hit it with a stick blender until it’s nice and smooth. Or you could sieve and then add some fraction of the onion back before doing the stick blender thing to make it smooth. Depends how much you like onion, I guess...

Once you’ve got the sauce as you want it, turn your attention back to the rice. Once it’s on a nice rolling boil, keep checking a bit on a teaspoon every couple of minutes until it’s cooked through. You want to avoid letting it get soggy, because that’s vile.

Drain the rice and serve it onto the plates in moulds. You could put the plates in the warm oven before dishing up if you want to.

Slice the chicken fillets into lengths just like they do at Wagamama and place next to the plated rice. If you discover at this point that the chicken is still slightly pink inside, don't panic, just make a mental note for next time to adjust your deep frying and zap the pieces in the microwave for a couple of minutes to finish them off.

Drizzle with the Katsu sauce, garnish with the salad leaves and serve.