If you were shocked to learn that Britain’s favourite dish is curry, you may be further astounded to know that “curry” or “kare-” is in fact one of the most popular dishes in Japan too, so much so that it can be officially defined as a national dish. However, since we Brits aren’t that great in the kitchen, we tend to eat real curry from India, whereas the Japanese have customized the curry so much that any visitors to Japan might wonder why they even bother to call it curry at all!

So let’s learn a little about Japanese curry and how it is different to regular Indian curry. For a start, it is never served with naan bread, though it is served with sliced white bread. In fact, I remember Japanese curry and sliced white bread was one of my favourite school meals as a teacher in Japanese schools. Possibly that was because it was the only meal that didn’t have a bowl of dried fish or soggy spinach though. They also serve Japanese curry with plain white rice, and perhaps most curiously with Udon noodles. In fact, this is consistently one of the top Udon flavours. Pork-cutlet and curry is also big, where a breaded and deep-fried pork cutlet is served on top of a bed of curry and accompanied by the usual rice.

Perhaps it is no surprise to learn that we British were in fact the ones who introduced the Japanese to curry in the first place, during the Meiji era (1869-1913), during the time when India was still under British administration. For some reason, we must have only given them the recipe used by the British navy though – which was basically a meat stew with the addition of some curry powder. The recipe persists to this day.

Nowadays, most people make kare- with one of the various instant curry-roux blocks on sale since the 1920s, with House Foods capturing over 60% of the total Japanese market. Perhaps the ease of preparation has made the curry as popular as it is, as the Japanese people find themselves more overworked than ever.