For someone who doesn’t watch a lot of TV or movies, I seem to have a lot of stories that center around “I saw this in an anime.” Curry is no different. Several years ago when I apparently spent a lot of time binging anime, I fell in love with the idea of curry. I had never even been in the same room as curry because my family ate the same like 10 meals growing up and they were all very southern centered. The idea of a cozy vegetable dish with rice excited me. I ended up seeing this a lot in different anime; sometimes it was just vegetable other times it had meat and then there was that one Black Butler episode where he stuffed it in a bun.

When we decided we were going to Japan, I started cooking more Japanese foods. I have a ton of allergies and knew that going somewhere fish centered could be a bad time so I wanted to try new foods before getting there. I also knew I needed to be familiar with how they cooked food to make sure I wasn’t eating fish unknowingly. Curry was one of the first dishes I made and it has become an obsession. Anytime the weather dips even just a little bit, I am trying to convince my husband we need curry.

I usually cook this as vegetable curry with sushi rice. It is quick, easy, and full of the comfort feels. I have made it with Katsu chicken (fried chicken covered in panko) but sometimes I get lazy and buy frozen breaded chicken patties and throw them in the air fryer to add meat to this dish. Sushi rice definitely adds to this dish but we have had it with basmati rice and it was still tasty. If you have someplace to get sushi rice, I definitely recommend it.

To make this, I mostly follow the directions on the package but I do sauté my vegetables longer than recommended. I usually do potatoes, onions, and carrots cooking them until tender before adding the curry mix. I have added zucchini and broccoli to this as well and both are delicious.