Japanese Curry Brick Recipe (2024)

I stumbled up S&B's "Golden Curry" blocks several years ago and didn't bother to think about it's makeup. S&B sells it with "heat" ranging from Medium to Extra Hot. It's a great product and can, just as I'm sure these curry blocks will, be used with chicken, pork, beef, lamb or shrimp. But I usually clear out the vegetable drawer when I'm making what we call "Curry Slop" -- adding in chopped celery, peppers, or bok choy; as well as diced water chestnuts or bamboo shoots -- to serve over rice.

Could you give the weight for the flour? The butter is relatively straightforward, with weights or without, but flour weights per cup have such a wide range, depending on the cookbook/recipe....do you use 125gm cups? Something else?

For it to be called Japanese Curry it needs a sweetener which is typically provided by fruit, more often than not apples and or pears. Take a look at Sam Swifton's Katsu Curry recipe.

Happy to see a recipe. The pre made curry blocks have wheat in them do Gluten free people can’t use them. If we make them GF flour can be used.

I can't wait to try this, as I eat a lot of curry! HOWEVER- be extremely careful about sourcing your Kombu. Read every word on the package and research the brand name you choose on line. Many brands are deceptively packaged. Some, not all, Japanese Kombu can come from irradiated waters near f*ckushima. Some Chinese brands are harvested from the Yellow Sea, which I understand to be the single most polluted body of seawater on the planet.

I’d be cautious about cooking that roux for 20 minutes. Despite the large quantity , I doubt it will take that long. When it smells like roasted peanuts, it’s done.

I’m at a loss as to what exactly a “1-inch strip” of kombu would be, since there is no uniform size of kombu. Is it 1” by 1”, 1” by 6”, or something totally different?

After using the spice grinder, I sifted it with a fine sieve to make sure I didn’t get any notable pieces of cinnamon stick. I’m VERY glad I took the extra minute to do this :)

My Japanese son in law browns hamburger, diced potatoes, carrots and onions, then mixes in a couple of curry brick and water. The mix simmers for about 15 minutes then is served over rice. Even better the next day. It’s easy like hamburger helper but one million times better.

Carrots will sweeten the curry. My Sicilian friend adds a carrot stick to every jar when his family gathers to can tomato sauce. He said it sweetens and mellows the sauce. As far as the curry, meat is not an important ingredient. A small amount will add flavor. Carrots and curry are a magical combination.

Made a batch of these this weekend with a friend. I think instead of the mini loaf pans, I will use an ice cube tray next time. As for the bricks themselves, we made a batch of curry to go with our pork katsu. As a base, it has a lot of deep flavor in it, but as the author says, it needs the addition of miso, soy, and mirin to round it out. We used two cubes and added about ½ cup light colored miso, 2 tsp smoked shoyu, 1 Tbs mirin.

Why wouldn’t these last more than 3 months in freezer? I understand the fresher the better, but based on ingredients and if stored airtight, I’d think they’d be safe for use a long time...

As with any traditional roux I would do a 1:1 weight ratio.

I am wondering if anyone has used this in vegan dishes -- if so, what success have they had with a vegan roux?

S&B uses palm oil as the primary roux ingredient to harden into bricks, resulting in 4 gms of saturated fat/serving. Tastes great, but I stopped buying them years ago with palm oil having some potential health risks and certainly production impacts on the environment. Can't wait to try this recipe!

Trigger, curry powder, pepper, chili pepper, garlic, celery seed, mustard

I distributed the curry paste into a silicone ice cube mold. Each cube was about 1 oz of curry. After freezing the cubes, I turned them out into a container and store them in the freezer. I use approx 1 cube per 8 oz liquid. Delicious!

Lots of ingredients to pull together but the result was amazing! I too stopped buying the store brand years ago because of the ingredients but have secretly missed the flavor the whole time. This tasted so much better and had the same comforting consistency. I used a mini muffin tray to portion it out since I didn’t have loaf pans and that worked great.

For my curry I sautéed onion, carrot, potato, garlic, grated ginger, and about 4 oz of torn fresh shiitake mushroom caps for 5-8 mins or so. I used 3 cups of broth, to which I added (going by tips from various recipes I know of) half a small apple (minced/grated), and 1/2 to 1 1/2 Tbsp each of tamari, honey, sake, and ketchup. I let it simmer about 13 mins. I then added a couple of heaping Tbsp yellow miso with the roux. Served over rice with f*ckujinzuke pickles. Delicious!

I used a parchment-lined 8” square pan to cool this, then cut it into 9 equal squares (about 7x7cm each). You can crumble them into smaller/more easily dissolvable pieces when you use them. Used a GF flour blend, came out great.

Has anyone used S&B curry powder instead of mixing up the curry ingredients? How much S&B powder did you use combined with roux? Thanks!

Has anyone made this with one of the gluten-free starches?

1/9 tablespoon is 1/3 teaspoon if you just use spices and make this curry directly per directions

It seems like a lot of fuss when you have S&B's Golden Curry so easily available. Of course, it's available in most Asian markets. But you can even find it in Walmart (at least the one that I'm near). Personally, I buy it in bulk on Amazon. You can even buy S&B's Curry Powder if you don't want the bricks.Some use fruit as a sweetner. Maybe you should try Vermont Curry bricks. I prefer S&B's version. But I often put carrots in mine, which is a similar idea.

Very useful for creating a nice curry-like dish with leftovers, fading vegetables, a can of beans etc. Highly recommended. I freeze it in a thin slab, break into various sized pieces and use ad lib. The flavor is quite mild but very aromatic and tasty.

Does this recipe call for using whole cardamon pods or the seeds from the pods?

What kind of cardamom? Green, white or black?

Can I some how use fresh shiitake mushrooms for this??

The recipe for Japanese Curry needed one more brick, for my taste. Grated ginger, shiro miso, soy sauce and salt made it delicious. This will be a regular in our house.

A lot of commentators mention the S&B curry blocks. Those have MSG in them. Being able to make your own without it is a wonderful thing....especially as it triggers migraines for so many people. Looking forward to gifting these to friends.