What food do you think of when it comes to Sapporo? As you know, there are many attractive meals such as miso-flavored ramen, Genghis Khan, and raw seafood on rice. If you have never eaten soup curry, which originated in Sapporo, I highly recommend trying it. Surprisingly, there are over two hundred soup curry restaurants in Sapporo. You can also eat it not only in Hokkaido but also in other prefectures. Once you eat it, you might fall in love with it!
What is soup curry? Is it soup or curry?
Some of you may wonder whether soup curry is soup or curry and how different it is from roux curry. It’s not soup but soup-like smooth curry. You will enjoy a rich flavor of spice and broth because it is cooked with a lot of different spices and ingredients such as chicken bone, pick bone, and vegetables. Additionally, putting large ingredients in curry is one of the features, for example, chicken legs and chunky large deep-fried vegetables. That’s because soup curry gets cold easily.
History
Please let me explain the history of soup curry. It was born at a cafe in Sapporo in the early 1970s. The owner used to cook Yakuzen soup to maintain his father’s health, which was chicken-based soup made with spices and herbal medicines he mixed according to his knowledge from his stays in India. He also used to serve rice and soup without ingredients at his cafe. Afterwards, his customers asked him to provide soup with chicken legs and vegetables which were supposed to be gotten rid of. Then, he started serving soup with ingredients. It is the origin of soup curry, but it wasn’t called ‘soup curry’ back then. The number of restaurants that served Indian or southeast Asian style soup curry had slightly increased since then.
Although, each restaurant called those curry not ‘soup curry’ but their own different names. It was said that the restaurant which opened in 1993 gave the name ‘soup curry’ and asked other restaurants to use this name. It was the turning point in the history of soup curry. More and more soup curry restaurants have opened since that time. In 2003, one of the soup curry restaurants opened a shop in the Yokohama Curry Museum, which was a food theme park in Kanagawa prefecture, and their soup curry captured a favorable reputation. Then, soup curry came to be nationally recognized.
How to order soup curry
It’s not very difficult to order soup curry at restaurants, but please let me tell you a basic way to order.
- Choose curry with your favorite ingredients.
- Choose a type of rice.（Some restaurants have a few types of rice, such as brown rice and saffron rice.)
- Choose a type of soup. （Some restaurants have a few types of soup, for example, shrimp-based one, tomato-based one, and chicken-based one.）
- Choose a spicy level. （The range of the level differs depending on the restaurant. You can choose your favorite level like from 0 to 5, 0 to 10, or even 0 to 100.） If you aren’t sure which level you should choose, you can ask the staff without hesitation. It is said that the spicier it is, the more delicious the soup curry is—because you will taste the spices more! But even if you chose level 0, don’t worry… you will still enjoy the good flavor of soup curry! 🙂
- Choose toppings as you like for an extra charge.
- Choose a drink if you want. （I highly recommend ordering lassi, which goes well with soup curry.）
How to eat soup curry
It’s common to eat soup curry with rice put on a separate plate. When you eat soup curry for the first time, you may wonder how you should eat it with rice. The common way to eat it is as follows:
- Before eating soup curry with rice , taste one spoonful of soup.
- Scoop up rice with a spoon.
- Soak rice in soup and eat it. Some people prefer to alternate between eating rice and soup. It’s the other way. However, it’s not common to put all of the rice in soup.
- Eat ingredients as they are.
Ingredient
The ingredients of soup curry are a combination of meat and vegetables. But most restaurants also serve vegetable curry without meat. The most popular combination is chicken leg and vegetables. Besides chicken, the main ingredients are stewed diced pork, hamburg, lamb meat, minced meat, natto, and whatnot. Some restaurants also provide seafood curry. Vegetables commonly used for soup curry are potatoes, carrots, eggplants, broccoli, pumpkin, paprika, green peppers, asparagus, mushrooms, lotus root, okra, and things like that.
Why don’t you enjoy soup curry at home?
Would you like to enjoy soup curry at home? If you like soup curry in Sapporo, I hope you try cooking it. You will easily cook spicy and delicious soup curry by cooking it with soup curry paste. Various kinds of paste are sold at grocery stores, some of which are supervised by the renowned restaurants. You can also find a variety of boil-in-bag soup curry with ingredients. Why don’t you check them and choose your favorite ones at a soup curry section at grocery stores or souvenir shops?
How to cook soup curry at home
I’d like to tell you how to cook soup curry with paste. I will introduce my usual way to cook it. It would be easier than you expect, and it doesn’t take a long time to cook.
Ingredients: soup curry paste, chicken, and vegetables
- Cut chicken. If you cook chicken legs, it’s not needed.
- Peel and cut vegetables. Microwaving carrots and potatoes beforehand helps you to cook for a shorter time.
- Pan-fry chicken and vegetables in a pot.（I usually pan-fry vegetables, which cook faster, with oil on a separate frying pan, and put them at the end.)
- Pure water in the pot and stew ingredients.
- Put the paste in the pot.
- If spicy oil and flavor oil are accompanied with the paste, put them in the bowl as you like when eating.
Did you get intrigued by soup curry? It’d be great if you can one day enjoy soup curry in Japan!
I was born and raised in Hokkaido. I live in Sapporo with my family. I love doing yoga, visiting cafes, going on trips, and learning English.
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