Buttermilk Chicken Katsu Curry

I am sure that there are as many recipes for Chicken Katsu Curry as there are people in this world.  

My first experience of Chicken Katsu Curry was at Yo! Sushi.  Before I became allergic to fish and shellfish the hubby and I regularly went to Yo! Sushi for (well, you guessed it!) sushi, but also for their undeniably great Chicken Katsu Curry.  I couldn’t get enough of it.  Then we discovered that Giraffe (the restaurant) also has a great Chicken Katsu Curry (with noodles!!), but our nearest is about 40 minutes’ drive away so I had to learn to make it myself.

After loads of research I’ve finally put together a recipe that the hubby approve of!

I would like to thank Wish to Dish for her inspiration for this recipe.  Please check out her website and her version of Chicken Katsu Curry.

 

Curry

This is a combination of my mother’s curried egg recipe (link to follow) and my own concoction of what I had in the cupboard…

1 large	Red onion
3 cloves	Garlic
1	Carrot
1 thumb size piece	Ginger
2 tablespoons	Plain flour
1 teaspoon	Garam Masala
1 teaspoon	Curry powder (I like medium)
1 teaspoon	Turmeric
1	Vegetable stock pot
1 tablespoon	Tomato ketchup
1 tablespoon	Mrs Ball’s Peach Chutney
1 tablespoon	Dried coriander leaves

 

Chicken Katsu

500 grams	Chicken tenders
1 cup	Buttermilk
2 tablespoons	Garlic powder
1 teaspoon	Garam Masala
1box (120g)	Panko Breadcrumbs
1	Egg
5 tablespoons	Plain flour

 

Pickle

1	Lemon
1	Red chilli
pinch	Sea salt
	Freshly ground black pepper

A couple of hours or the night before:

Marinate the chicken tenders in the buttermilk.  Place in the fridge until you are ready to coat and cook them.

 

Pickle

You can also make this the night before or start with this before you coat the chicken and make the sauce.

1. Take the red onion and slice about a quarter of this in very thin rings.
2. Chop the chilli very fine and combine with the onion.
3. Juice the lemon and pour the juice over the onion-chilli mix.
4. Season liberally with salt and black pepper and place in the fridge until serving.

 

Curry sauce

1. Chop the rest of the onion finely.
2. Chop the carrot, garlic and ginger also very finely.
3. Fry the onions, carrots, ginger, dried coriander leaves and garlic in a wok with a tiny bit of oil until the onions are translucent.
4. Stir in the plain flour, garam masala, curry powder, and turmeric until the onion-carrot mix is well-coated.
5. Add the stock pot with a cup of water and stir until everything is well-combined.
6. Add in the ketchup and chutney.
7. Let the sauce simmer whilst you prepare the chicken katsu and boil some basmati rice for serving.  Find my recipe for Fluffy Basmati Rice by clicking on the link.
8. Just before serving you can either blitz the sauce to make it smooth or (and this is what I did) take a potato masher and just mash it slightly down.

 

Chicken Katsu

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C and get a pan on the hob on a high heat with a tiny bit of oil to give the chicken some colour.
2. This part can get very messy so get ready for some sticky fingers!
3. Combine the flour with the garlic powder and garam masala in a small bowl.
4. Crack the egg open and lightly beat with a fork in another small bowl.
5. Pour the panko breadcrumbs into a third bowl.
6. Remove the chicken from the buttermilk and pat dry with a paper towel.
7. First coat the chicken (one by one) with the flour mix, before dipping it into the egg.  Once you take it out of the egg coat it in the panko breadcrumbs.
8. Flash fry the chicken just long enough to give it colour before popping it into the hot oven to finish baking for 15-20 minutes (I just find this much more healthy than frying it completely.)

 

To serve

Spoon some rice into a deep bowl and top with the curry sauce followed by the chicken on top.  Place the pickle to the side and serve with a wedge of lemon and some tenderstem broccoli (you know, to make it more healthy!)

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This recipe only served 2 (yes, you read that correctly!!), but a word of warning: make it when you have loads of time as it took me nearly 2.5 hours from start to finish.  It was well worth it, though!

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Do you fancy some more chicken recipes?