Banana katsu curry wih tofu nuggets.

Life has been so topsy turvy over the last few months that one of life's little pleasures is good home cooked food.  Which is not to say it is not always a pleasure.  It is just that such little joys were not quite so frequent in the days of getting home from work late and busy weekends.  After a stressful year last year, I find that having that little more time in lockdown has helped rediscover my cooking mojo.  Batch cooking once a weekend makes it easy to get through the week.

One thing I have not made during lockdown is banana bread.  It seems everyone else is.  However I am not a big fan of bananas.  It is a fruit I crave every now and again but between times I usually ignore it.  I was feeling quite left out.  So I bought bananas, just so they could go brown and made me need to use them up.  Actually, that didn't work and I threw out a couple of black ones a few days ago.  This recipe for banana katsu curry was one of my attempts to use an old banana, as well as some apples.

The recipe I found in the Guardian fascinated me with banana in katsu sauce but then I found it was there as a little sweetner like the apple.  The sauce did not taste of banana.  The recipe was just for sauce with breaded cauliflower.  I went with more vegies in the sauce and tofu nuggets that I have made before.  Breaded tofu is the sort of thing I have had at Japanese restaurants in this sort of curry.

I blended the curry sauce in my froothie blender to get a really smooth sauce (rather than an almost smooth sauce from my hand held blender) and sadly I think my blender will carry the stains with it for a long time.  Thanks turmeric!

It had been ages since I made these tofu nuggets.  Sylvia used to love them.  More recently we have discovered supermarket tofu nuggets which are quite good.  I was worried Sylvia would prefer the bought stuff but she was delighted that I made her favourite tofu nuggets.  No doubt they were even better for being fried rather than baked.

This curry was made on a quite night when I must have had lots of energy - it was over a month ago.  The below picture reminds me how much work and mess there was.  Making the sauce, roasting vegies, breading and frying tofu nuggets and boiling rice all added up to a late meal. 

Even better, there were heaps of leftovers and plenty of tofu nuggets for Sylvia who was not at all impressed with my Japanese curry.  Unlike her I was very very impressed by my efforts and really loved that it made for lots of meals.  The sauce had lovely flavour, the tofu had a great crunch and the extra vegies in the sauce made it really satisfying.

More Japanese inspired recipes from Green Gourmet Giraffe:
Japanese curry (v) 
Japanese snow pea salad (gf, v)
Japanese-style pumpkin, sprouts and tofu soup (gf, v)
Sushi stack with carrot, tofu omelet and avocado (gf, v)
Sushi with sticky walnuts and edamame (gf, v)

Banana katsu curry with tofu nuggets
Adapted from the Guardian
Serves4

Banana katsu curry sauce:

1 onion, peeled and diced
1 garlic clove, peeled and finely chopped
2-3 tsp oil, plus extra for frying
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp mustard powder
1/4 tsp ginger powder
500ml vegetable stock
1 tbsp tomato ketchup
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 green apple, diced
1 brown banana, finely sliced

Vegetables:

1 eggplant, diced and roasted
1 large wedge of pumpkin (about 500g), diced and roasted
1 cup frozen peas

To serve:

Tofu nuggets
Cooked rice
1 spring onion, sliced
Sesame seeds

To make banana katsu curry sauce, fry onion, carrot and garlic in oil for 3-5 minutes.  Stir in spices and then add remaining ingredients.  Simmer for 15 minutes and then blend until smooth.  Add the eggplant, pumpkin and peas.  Bring to the boil.  Scoop some warm rice into the middle of a shallow bowl, pour the sauce around the rice, add in some warm tofu nuggets and scatter with a garnish of spring onion and sesame seeds.

On the stereo:
As Day Follows Night: Sarah Blasko