Along with sushi and ramen, curry is consistently ranked as one of the top three favorite dishes by all ages and genders in Japan.
As I’ve written about previously, the classic Anglo-Indian and French cuisine-inspired curry that is commonly known as Japanese-style curry, with its rich, roux-thickened sauce, evolved into its current form in the 1960s to 1970s.
But the evolution of curry in Japan has not stopped there. With the influx of restaurants serving spicy curry-type dishes from other countries in recent years, especially from South Asia, the Japanese curry landscape has become even more varied and interesting.
The first major evolution of post roux-based Japanese curry happened in the 1970s in Sapporo, Hokkaido, where a shop called Ajanta had a chicken soup based on yakuzen (Chinese medicinal food theories) on its menu as well as a curry.
Legend has it that a customer suggested combining the two dishes. Initially the new hybrid dish was a mainly liquid soup called yakuzen curry, but it soon evolved to include other ingredients such as chicken and chunky vegetables. In 1993, a restaurant called Magic Spice, also in Sapporo, dubbed it “soup curry,” which is what it’s still called today.
Soup curry has a liquid, soup-like base — usually a chicken bone stock made using Cantonese methods — and, as its name indicates, is not thickened with roux. The type of meat used varies from chicken to pork, beef or lamb.
Another major development in the world of Japanese curry started in 1990s Osaka. Simply called “spice curry,” it was initially created by people who had traveled to South and Southeast Asia and tasted the curry dishes from those regions firsthand.
While spice curry is greatly influenced by these South Asian dishes and is based on blending individual spices rather than commercial curry roux, in Japan it has developed some unique twists, such as using a dashi stock base. In the past few years, spice curry has taken off nationally.
This recipe is for a vegetable-packed soup curry with a little spice curry influence. Dashi or chicken stock can be used as the base — I prefer dashi for a lighter taste, especially in the summer. You can vary the heat by adjusting the amount of chili pepper and sanshō pepper. Or, you can use kabocha squash instead of the potatoes for added sweetness.
