Chicken katsu curry

Before you start

• oil for frying — a deep pan no more than a third full
• the sauce wants half an hour, so it goes on before the frying starts

Ingredients

Serves 2 · dimmer marks are storecupboard

• 300gchicken breast
• 140gshort-grain rice
• 80gpanko breadcrumbs — panko, not dried crumb — the flakes are the whole texture
• 45gplain flour — some for dredging, some for the roux
• 1eggs
• 2 tbspoil for frying
• 20gbutter
• 150gpotatoes
• 1onion
• 1carrot
• 2 tbspcurry powder
• 500mlchicken stock

Method

7 steps

1. chop · 6m

   Onion sliced, carrot into rounds, potatoes into chunks that will hold together.

2. simmer · 35m

   Butter melted, onion softened in it, then the flour and curry powder stirred in and cooked for a good three minutes until it darkens and smells toasted. Stock added a ladle at a time, whisking each one in before the next, then carrot and potato, and left to tick over until the potato gives to a knife.

3. boil · 18m walk away

   Rice rinsed and on, lid, lowest heat.

4. chop · 8m

   Chicken cut horizontally into two flat pieces and beaten to an even centimetre under a bag. Even thickness is what stops the thin end drying while the thick end is still raw.

5. fold · 6m

   Flour, then beaten egg, then panko, each cutlet pressed firmly into the crumb on both sides so it takes a thick coat.

6. fry · 10m

   Oil into a deep pan, never more than a third full and never moved once it is hot. Brought to the point where a crumb sizzles briskly, then the cutlets in one at a time and turned once, until deep gold and cooked right through with no pink in the middle — four or five minutes for a centimetre.

7. finish · 4m

   Drained on a rack rather than paper so the underside stays crisp, rested two minutes, then sliced across into thick fingers and laid beside the rice with the sauce poured over the rice and not the crust.