Jump to: the food / recreating the food / trying it out / recipes
The scene
As the great-aunt said on the phone in the previous scene, the sisters' mother, Miyako, visits Kamakura. She now lives all the way in Hokkaido and rarely sees her daughters. In Japan it's customary to hold multiple memorial services (which I suppose you could call "death anniversaries") for family members who have passed away, and the sisters' grandmother's memorial service finally brings her back to her old hometown. She has missed several of the previous ones. Miyako stays with her aunt and it wouldn't be until the service itself where she'd meet her daughters - and Suzu. As you might've expected, it's quite an awkward first meeting.
After the service they gather together at the house for some ice cream. When Miyako floats the idea of selling the house, the usually cool and composed Sachi responds that she doesn't live there, never helped around the house anyway, left her own daughters behind and thus doesn't have any right to decide what to do with the property. Miyako tries to defend herself but a furious Sachi berates her for being selfish. Great-aunt Fumiyo orders them to stop arguing and watch what they're saying. Sachi should show more respect for her mother while Miyako should take some blame for what happened.
Miyako.
The great-aunt and Miyako leave. Yoshino and Chika aren't surprised that the argument took place and pity Suzu who had to witness it. Sachi says it's her responsibility to take care of the house, but Yoshino says no one asked her to and she only does it to show their mother who's boss, and even took Suzu in out of spite for their mother. A shocked Sachi can't get in another word before Chika says they should cook something. Yoshino and Chika leave to buy groceries while Sachi gets Suzu to help with the cooking.
They've decided to go with a seafood dinner. Sachi says it's the only recipe she ever learned from her mother. Miyako never liked being in the kitchen and this dish is quick and easy to make because seafood is faster to cook than meat.
Suzu apologises for her mother splintering the family. Sachi says Suzu had nothing to do with it, but Suzu continues to say that her mother was a bad person because she fell in love with a married man. Sachi tries to tell Suzu it wasn't anyone's fault but Suzu seems to have made up her mind.
The food
It's somewhat unclear what they're actually cooking here. The two Finnish subtitles I've seen were different, with one translating whatever the two are saying as curry and another as, well, nothing. The English translations I looked up also had the same problem, with one saying curry and another just a "seafood stew". And, as far as I personally understand the Japanese dialogue (not perfectly, that is), I don't think they ever actually mention what exactly it's supposed to be. We only know whatever they're making includes seafood and onions (Sachi says Suzu has cut enough onions). However, another scene later on thankfully makes it makes it obvious that it's a seafood curry, as you might've surmised from the title of this post.
So, what kind of seafood are we talking about here? Chika and Yoshino's shopping trip helps us narrow it down somewhat.
It's impossible to make out what they put in the basket in this short shot, but they do mention they wanted to get scallops but there were none at the grocery store. Also, clams are apparently too expensive. When they return home they say they got what one translation calls baby clams. Unfortunately I can't make out what they say in Japanese. I figured that they originally wanted to get scallops, so we'll go with those. So - this is a seafood curry that should be easy to make and should include onion and scallops.
Before we get to cooking, let's talk about Japanese curry! If you're mostly familiar with the classic Japanese dishes such as sushi, ramen, yakiniku etc., learning that such a thing as Japanese curry exists in the first place might come as a surprise. It certainly did for me when I visited Japan for the first time. I was quite surprised to see both Tokyo and Osaka littered with curry restaurants both small and big. I later learned that the Japanese got curry from the British who occupied India during the Meiji era in the 19th century, and, much like ramen and tempura, the Japanese modified the new dish to their liking and made it their own. Nowadays curry is one of the most popular everyday meals in Japan - and I can understand why. Japanese-style curry is very easy to make at home and is quite versatile.
Compared curries from in and around India and in other parts of Asia, Japanese curry is really its own thing. The most immediate difference you'll likely notice is that even the spiciest of normal Japanese curries will be extremely mild compared to, say, an Indian curry. The taste of the curry in and of itself is also distinct because the Japanese use different, milder herbs in it as well as ingredients that might not be used elsewhere (potatoes, carrots and onions being common basic vegetables to use). Passionate About Food goes into detail on those differences in this article. As with just about any Japanese dish, there are of course multiple local varieties and twists on the basic concept. Japanese curry is typically served with rice but can also be eaten as a kind of a soup with noodles (usually udon) or used as a filling in pastries.
Recreating the food
As it happens, I found a seafood curry recipe that does indeed have both onions and scallops in it on the website J-Simple Recipes. And what's more, it's indeed a very simple dish to cook, just like Sachi said it should be. The basic ingredients are easy-to-prep things onions, shrimp, scallions and curry roux blocks plus a couple of normal things you'll likely have in your pantry anyway like olive oil and butter and it only takes maybe 40 minutes to cook with less than a half of it active cooking.
What makes Japanese curry especially easy to make is the fact that you don't have to buy and fiddle around with a dozen different herbs, instead you just get your favourite Japanese curry roux blocks. There are all kinds of brands and varieties of them but as far as I've understood, the most common ones are Vermont and Golden Curry. There are mild, medium and hot curry blocks out there but in my experience even the "hot" curry had barely any heat at all in it. For this curry I used the hot Golden Curry blocks seen below. If you don't have a Japanese shop in your city, you might get lucky with other Asian stores. I've seen Thai and Vietnamese shops here in Helsinki stock Golden Curry and other Japanese curry blocks.
Before making this recipe I'd never bought scallops before and was amazed by how expensive they were (around 50€/kg). Oof! Later I noticed the Thai stores had frozen scallops at a much easier-to-swallow price point (35€/kg or thereabouts). However, I got fresh scallops both times I made this dish.
Then, depending on what you bought, you might have to devein and peel your shrimp. I've used small pre-cooked shrimp as well as larger, already deveined and peeled raw shrimp so I've been able to skip that step of the process.
Cut the onions into thin slices, heat butter in your pan or kettle and fry the onions until they start getting brown, then remove from the pan. Add in your olive oil, sliced garlic, shrimp and scallops, sake or white wine (I used sake) and fry until the seafood is cooked. Add water, bring to a boil, add the onions back in and then the curry roux blocks and then let it simmer and mix for at least five or so minutes. Serve with steamed rice. And that's it!
It might not look that appetising. However...
Trying it out
It's ridiculously delicious! I'm not sure how to describe it but the rich seafood flavour and the hearty curry sauce work simply perfectly together. The "hot" curry roux give just enough of gentle spicy kick that you can feel a slight tingle in your mouth without the spiciness distracting from the taste.
I wasn't sure if I'd had scallops before (asked my mother and the answer was yes, a long time ago) and they were a revelation. Those things are incredibly tasty, like little clouds of the ocean that just dissolve in your mouth. If you want to cook this particular recipe but can't get scallops, you could of course replace them with other seafood such as clams, like in the movie. I could also see white fish working well.
The first time I made this curry was with small shrimp which worked just as well as the large ones flavour-wise. However, I would say the larger shrimp made for a better texture.
I think it should also be possible to make the dish entirely vegan. You could get some of that seafood flavour in the curry by marinating, say, mushrooms in kombu dashi. Use king oyster mushrooms if you want something that looks deceptively like scallops!
You really should give this recipe a try, especially if you've never had Japanese curry before. It's pretty much foolproof and I'm sure you'll be blown away by the results. I've been eating curries ever since I started making them for this blog because they're so delicious with very little effort and can be affordable too, depending on what you want to put in them!
Also, if and when you’ve got curry left over, do try it with udon noodles. It might sound sort of weird but trust the Japanese: it's fantastic.
Recipes used
Curry with scallops and shrimp: J-Simple Recipes
Comments
Post a Comment