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(speaking in a foreign language)
- [Alvin] Hello there.
Welcome back to another episode of Anime with Alvin.
Today, I'll be making the Curry of Life from Naruto.
In the show, this curry has a spice level so high
that it can immediately wake up an unconscious person
when fed a single spoonful.
So as you can tell by this bowl
of dried chilies in front of me,
this is gonna be a spicy one.
For the curry recipe itself,
I'm starting with a Japanese style curry
beginning with onion, ginger and garlic.
I'm just peeling and slicing one large onion
into normal size chunks.
For the garlic, I'm chopping up two cloves
and for the ginger, I'm using about a one inch knob
removing the skin with my knife and grating it
until everything has been broken down.
The other vegetables, I have three carrots and one potato.
I'm peeling and cutting the carrot
into nice jewel size chunks
and providing the same treatment to the potato.
For the meat, it's pretty common to use beef
in these kinda situations
and the cut of beef used for this curry is chuck
which has some connective tissue and fat
that'll break down quite nicely in the braise.
Once it's been untied, the chuck gets cut into large chunks.
These end up shrinking quite a bit during the cook
so I like to have them a little larger.
All right, everybody's all happy.
To the stove.
In a large Dutch oven over high heat,
I'm browning the beef in a little bit of cooking oil.
That gets followed up by a healthy pinch of salt
and a heavy dose of freshly cracked black pepper.
Once that's looking pretty good,
the beef exits the pan into a bowl to rest for later
and after all the remaining juices have reduced down,
in go the onion.
The onions hang out and stir in the pot
until they started to sweat a little bit
then the garlic and ginger joins the party.
If they came to the party a little too soon,
they probably would've burned
so it's good that they have the onions
to help give them protection.
For some spice, color and flavor,
I'm adding in one tablespoon of togarashi
along with one tablespoon of tomato paste.
Even though you may not find these
in a lot of Japanese curries, lady Sanshō from the show
does seem to add a lot of things into this Curry of Life
and the flavors do seem to make sense with everything else.
Once everything's been stirred
and takes on a nice, beautiful red color,
I'm gonna deglaze with one whole cup of red wine.
This will help get all the flavor bits
that might be stuck to the bottom or the sides
but also make the curry a little bit darker.
We are trying to go for a dark black after all.
At this point in time,
the beef has decided to rejoin this party
along with roughly eight cups of beef stock.
Everybody in the pot seems to be having a good time
so we're gonna let them hang out
and cook over low heat with the lid half open.
I'll let you guys simmer away for about an hour or so.
While the curry party happens over there,
I'm gonna make one of its best friends, rice.
Pretty straightforward.
Rice cooker, three cups of white rice
which I'm going to first wash to remove any excess starch
that would cause the grains to clump together
if not washed out.
Let's press the button and let this rice cook
'cause I have other things to attend to,
a rather spicy encounter.
I have here an entire bowl of dried red chilies.
I believe these are from the Sichuan origin
and being Chinese myself, I'm quite familiar with these
and how terrible they are when they hit your tongue.
I do wanna make sure I remove the stems first
because those would definitely not be pleasant to eat
as if the other parts are.
As I am going through these stems,
I am contemplating how much to actually use
and I decided to not kill everybody in the room
because this is the Curry of Life, not the curry of death.
I will settle with half a bowl of dried Sichuan chilies.
Fun fact, a single one of these usually makes me sweat.
This is going to be rather interesting.
Now, over a high flame, foreshadowing,
I'm gonna toast these topless chilies in a dry pan
until smoky and dark.
This not only removes the moisture
but also wakes up the chilies' aromatic and spicy flavors
just like how this curry is supposed to wake up
an almost dead person.
Let's check back on this curry party, shall we?
Hm, this party seems to have reduced in size
so it's time to add in a few more guests,
the potatoes and the carrots.
These usually come last to the party
because if they go a little too early,
they would have a breakdown.
The water level seems a little too low
so I am topping it off with a bit of extra beef stock
but even though everybody's in there having a good time,
the party can't really start
until the guest of honor is here, the curry,
which in this recipe will take on the form
of a curry roux block
often come in packages sold at Asian supermarkets.
I made sure I got the spiciest one out there.
Says extra hot right there on the box.
For the amount of food we have in the pot,
I'm using half of the package
or four of these little blocks broken down.
One way that I found useful is to put this in a giant ladle,
lower it into the liquid and slowly mix it around
to let the liquid absorb into the roux
before mixing with the rest of the pot
but once it's all out of the spoon,
give it a good old mix and it's pretty much ready to go
and you could totally stop at this point
for a typical normal Japanese style curry.
It would be pretty delicious with some rice
but we're not doing normal today.
This is the Curry of Life.
Remember all those toasted chilies from before?
Well, these are gonna go into a food processor
and processed until they become a very fine powder.
If you don't have any sensitive people in the room,
make sure to uncover the lid
and blow out all of the chili aromas into the room
to make them sneeze and cough.
Can't really tell but Steve, Nico and Kendall
are now feeling the effects of this chili wave
that I have graciously bestowed upon them.
This world will know pain.
The curry party seems to be going pretty good.
Just gonna top this off with another splash of beef stock
'cause the water seems to be a little low
giving it a stir to make sure
that no bits are burnt on the bottom
and to really achieve that super dark black color,
I'm using a whole entire packet of black bean paste,
also found at most Asian grocery supermarkets.
This paste is often made with fermented wheat flour
and soybeans and the flavor does seem to go well
with the rest of the ingredients.
This is often used in a lot of types of Asian cuisine.
I've personally seen my mom use this
in a Chinese dish called jajangmyeon
and Korean cooks use this in a dish called jajangmyeon.
Same saying but different.
In preparation for the amount of spice
we're gonna bombard this thing,
with I'm adding a pretty healthy glug of honey.
Sweetness does seem to help ease the spiciness sometimes.
So I will actually add three healthy glugs of honey
before giving it a stir and reluctantly
but willingly adding in all of the toasted
and blended chili powder from our food processor.
Oh boy.
Mm, delicious.
Look at all those chili seeds just swarming to the surface.
Now, I could have added all sorts of different peppers,
ghost peppers, scotch bonnet
but I did actually want this end product to be delicious
and those peppers' flavors might have actually killed it.
At this point, this curry is very dark
but it isn't pitch black
and I'm gonna be honest with you guys.
I'm gonna cheat a little bit
with a little splash of black gel food coloring.
I could have probably added something really dark
like squid ink or even more of that bean paste
but I did want this to be edible and pretty delicious
because Rock Lee in the show
does seem to really love the flavors.
After another five minutes,
there seems to be a blackout at this party.
This looks like a pot of death.
Delicious.
Our midnight black curry is done, our rice is done
so the last thing to do is to plate up and serve.
Onto a dinner plate goes a massive heaping of white rice.
The ninjas in Naruto are soldiers and should be fed as such.
Onto our heaping pile of rice
goes a heaping ladle full of our jet black Curry of Life.
Hey, this looks kinda cool, almost like a yin yang sign
with too much of the one and not much of the other.
I forgot which is which
but I present to you our version of the Curry of Life
from Naruto known to be so spicy and strong
that it can wake up an unconscious ninja
with one single bite.
I am awake but I will take a big bite nevertheless.
Here we go.
No turning back now.
Hm.
Oh.
What you see here is a look of instant regret,
contemplation of the meaning of life itself
and all of the choices I have made in my last years.
Sweet baby Jesus.
The flavor is actually quite nice.
It's like you're eating a really delicious Japanese curry
and someone decides to break into your house
with a flamethrower and he won't stop flaming
even though you tell him to
and as time goes on, the flamethrower turns into jet fuel.
Here's some milk that Kendall has graciously provided me.
I'm good now.
Oh, look, Nico has fallen unconscious on the battlefield.
Whatever will wake him up?
Maybe a spoonful of this Curry of Life.
Let's see what happens.
Oh and he's up and ready for battle
after being knocked out by Andrew in a fistfight.
Hey, it's Kendall.
Kendall, Kendall seems to love what is happening right now.
I really think curry is her favorite food.
How about Steve?
Steve, what do you think?
Steve is shaking or nodding his head.
An eye is twitching.
I'm not sure what is going on but nah, he's good.
He was playing with us the whole time, you silly goose.
Oh, Andrew.
Andrew, what do you think about this Curry of Life?
Okay, he's inhaling.
He's exhaling.
The hat has now left the building.
Yep, I think he likes it.
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(calm music)