Those of you who saw my Delgana Coffee post know that I try not to get sucked into the insta craze of the week for food or beverage, but this one, I just had to. On my insta, blog and facebook feeds, I kept seeing people re-create the Wagamama Katsu Curry, so I thought I would give it ago.

For my version of the recipe you will need

For the Sauce
Olive Oil (about 2 Tablespoons)
2 large white onions Finely Chopped
4 Cloves of Garlic Chopped
5cm Fresh Ginger Finely Chopped
3 Tablespoons of Mild Curry Powder
3 Teaspoons of Turmeric
1 Tablespoon of Plain Flour
500ml of Stock-I used 1 chicken & 1 vegetable stock pot
2 teaspoons Light Soy Sauce
200ml of Light Coconut Milk
2 teaspoons of Brown Sugar

You will also need 4 Chicken Breasts (or 2 of you are cooking for 2 people) breadcrumbs, plain flour and a beaten egg and 150g of rice.

To make the sauce, place your chopped onions into a sturdy bottomed saucepan. Add the oil and place over a low to medium heat. It may look like you have put in too much oil at this stage, don’t panic. Let your chopped onions swim about for a bit. Give a little stir, and then leave them alone for a bit. While they are gently cooking, chop your Garlic and Ginger and add this to the onions. Leave to cook down for about 5 minutes, giving a little stir so that they don’t catch or start to caramalise. Now add your curry powder and Turmeric to the pan and make sure you mix it into the onions, garlic and ginger. Give this a good stir as the mix begins to release its fragrance. Don’t rush this stage, if you don’t cook in the curry powder it will give the sauce a grainy texture. Make sure it doesn’t catch on the bottom of the pan.

After about 5-7 minutes, add the plain flour and cook this through as well. The plain flour will thicken the sauce nicely, but again, make sure that the flour is cooked off (about 5 minutes) otherwise you will get a floury taste in the sauce.

Now you can start adding the stock. Do this little by little, like you are making a basic white sauce, until all the stock has been added and you have a dark curry sauce. The only lumps you will have will be the onions and garlic as the flour and spices would have now all been absorbed. Add your coconut milk and the colour will lighten and the sauce will become creamier. Leave to simmer on a really low heat, stirring occasionally.

That’s your sauce done, now time to bash the chicken…. First heat your oven to 140c gas mark 1

Preparation is key here. Get three shallow bowls, put plain flour in one, a beaten egg into another and breadcrumbs into the third. Have them lined up in that order. Now, take a chicken breast and place it between layers of either baking parchment or cling film. Get a rolling pin and bash that chicken breast like its the head of your mortal enemy! Or until the breast has been flattened down to about 1/2 and inch in thickness.

You now need to dredge the breasts into the flour first, making sure its coated the chicken, then the egg and then the breadcrumbs. Try to do this using one hand and keeping one hand dry as I can guarantee you, your phone will ring during this process and you don’t want a breadcumby phone! Lay your dredged breasts onto a board as you heat a frying pan filled with about an inch of vegetable oil. When frying, make sure that you are only filling your pan about a 1/3 as the oil will bubble up!

Fry them for about 4 minutes on each side, or until the breadcrumbs have turned a nice golden colour. Be carful during this part as the oil will bubble up. Once cooked you can place these in the oven to keep warm until you need them.

Ok we are almost there now. It’s now time to cook your rice in the normal way. I always bring a pan of water to the boil chuck in some salt and the rice and cook for 12 minutes. While this is happening, your sauce should be nice and thick and your chicken is resting in the warm oven. Now you can, if you like a silky smooth sauce, strain it through a sieve, but I quite like the little lumps of ginger, onion and garlic.

Once your rice is done, plate up a chicken breast, side of rice, and then smother the chicken with the curry sauce.

Thanks for reading, hope you try this one out.