Curry Udon

Jay. This recipe is riffing on the Japanese version of curry. Japanese curry powder / roux bricks are very different in taste from Thai curry. It's 2 totally different cuisines. If you use Maesri curry pastes, you are making a Thai-style dish. If that's what you want to make, that's ok. Just want you to know what you're suggesting will create a totally different udon dish than this recipe. All curries are not the same.

The instruction for curry bricks to ‘check[] package instructions to determine how many bricks to add’ is really unhelpful. Curry brick boxes come in different sizes for different amounts of curry, and there is no way to know from this recipe how much of a normal curry recipe (not for udon) it would be making in order to determine how many bricks to add.

If all you are using is a curry powder, how about using Maesri Thai curry pastes instead? They come in 4-oz tins, so, inexpensive and readily available at any store which sells oriental groceries. I have masaman, panang and green curry, but there are several others. Start with half a can, add more to get a hotter result.

NYT has a recipe for Japanese curry bricks: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1020451-japanese-curry-brick These are really helpful to have in the freezer for any time you want to make Japanese curry. For this recipe use 2-3 bricks (I used 3, but your flavor might vary). If you use these bricks, or even purchased curry bricks, you wouldn’t make the curry roux. The homemade bricks or the purchased ones would be added at Step 4, adjusting broth thickness as needed. Definitely make. Delicious!

Saying Thai curry is the same as Japanese curry is like saying Mac and cheese is the same thing as linguini and clams. They have virtually nothing to do with each other.

This is Japanese Curry Udon, don't use Thai curry paste. Carrots would taste and look better if you cut them diagonal and smaller. Also, sprinkling chopped scallion right before you serve is a must. It's normally made with leftover curry so all the veggies are soft and curry develops the depth.

Don’t bother with store-bought curry bricks! Instead skip straight ahead to superior: Sonoko Sacai’s recipe for curry bricks adapted right here in NYT Cooking by Tejal Rao! I’m about to make another batch and then I’ll try this recipe.

Used S & B Golden Curry blocks. Did not have spinach. Substituted broccoli florets instead. Used thin spaghetti because I had no udon. Boiled the spaghetti with the kombu and saved the water as the broth for the stew. On a 2023 atmospheric river rainy night in San Francisco, this old school dish provided old school comfort.

Delicious and easy. Using S&B mild curry blocks, I needed the whole 3.2 ounce pack to add enough flavor and body to the broth.

I mistook dry for fresh udon and it ended up as sludge. Only 8oz of dry udon is probably sufficient.

I just wanted to add a note that curry bricks are not vegan as they have butter. And that I appreciate the take Hetty offers here because it eschews hunting down hard to find authentic Japanese ingredients. The US is huge and diverse and not everyone has a grocery store nearby that carries Japanese ingredients as our stores tend to reflect our local populations. Ordering online is an option, but it can be wasteful to order things through the mail.

Hi Mary Poppins. You don’t need to make the roux if you’re using a store bought brick. As the recipe notes in the introduction, you can skip to step 4. I hope this helps.