Japanese Beef and Vegetable Curry - Being A Copycat

Sous chef is quite a copycat.

Really?

I bet you guys must have cute nicknames for each other. When I created one, it will be copied immediately, and SC will instantly forget that the name was my idea. He'd soon think that he'd created it. But, these days, his creativity has gone through the roof. He gives me different nicknames almost every day, I am confused which names refer to me...one thing is for sure, though...all of them pretty much means "fatty" (Sigh. I guess I deserve this)

Being a normal guy, contrary to most people's belief that he is a metrosexual and shopaholic, he absolutely loathes shopping and is hardly interested in fashion. I could have been persuading him to buy certain things for the longest time, the answer is always NO. However, if some cute guys at work wore something that looks good, he will rush to the store and try to find a cheap copy of it (how annoying?).

These days, it gets even worse. SC likes to copy a friend of mine, cute couple Athena and Joe.
When Joe showed up wearing a hat, SC wants a hat too. He is rather obsessed with this, although he probably wouldn't want to admit it....and when he saw Athena made a gorgeous looking Japanese curry, as expected, he asked me to make the same too!

To make me feel better, I'll call it being inspired rather than copying. ^_*

Japanese and Vegetable Beef Curry

Recipe
(serves 4 with rice)
- 1 box of Japanese curry seasoning (Athena recommended S&B brand, I bought mine at Jusco $10 shop)
- 2 carrots (I skipped potatoes as I already have rice as carb)
- 1 large onion, chopped into large chunks
- 1 green pepper (I want the color)
- 4 chicken franks, chopped (I need to make this dish enough for 4 meals)
- 0.5 lbs beef cubes (you can replace with other protein, such as chicken, pork, fish, etc)
- olive oil, water
- optional: fish sauce, ground paprika, black pepper


First, saute beef cubes and chicken franks in hot olive oil until the beef changed color but not exactly cooked through, set aside. I did this because I didn't want to overcook the beef cubes and I want some color on the chicken franks.


Saute onion and peppers until fragrant, add carrots, add water (the amount of water should be written on the curry seasoning box, but naturally, I didn't follow, I just added enough to cover the vegetables). Bring to boil and cook until the carrot starts to soften.


Meanwhile, prepare curry seasoning blocks...


There were 6 blocks in the box, add four and keep two to add at the last step. This prevents the curry for being too thick too soon.


Mix well, make sure the curry blocks are dissolved, the curry will soon thicken.


Once the curry is thickened, add beef cubes and chicken franks...


...then add the last two blocks of curry seasoning. Mix well.


The curry is pretty much done, taste to check if any flavor's missing. Japanese curry isn't exactly my favorite, because of its sweetness and the way it is thickened using starch. Thus, I added some fish sauce for a bit of saltiness and tang, as well as ground paprika and black pepper for the extra kick of spiciness.

I served mine with a mix of red, brown and white rice.

How come my curry doesn't look as pretty as Athena's? T_T

I bet it's because I need to get the same cute little pink Le Creusset pot...YEAH! (It's my turn to be a copycat)
*SC is yelling...NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!*