Curry

I have five days left before I leave for my long journey home (given the bus trip down to Xiamen and the two hour plane ride home, it feels like I'm travelling as far as Hawaii for such a short distance), my main objective this week is to store my things with my friend M, and dispose, use up everything else, particularly anything edible. I've kept grocery shopping to a minimum over the last three weeks, and haven't cooked a great deal. I have two packs of dumplings to eat for lunch and dinner tomorrow, but I have been keen on making japanese curry for some time. I have a packet of the curry paste, and an apple, so I trotted down to the supermarket to get some vegies, chopped them up (one onion, a head of garlic, two medium potatoes, two carrots) and began the layering in the pot. First rough chopped onions fry up in oil, letting it caramelize for added smokiness, toss in the garlic, and a splosh of fish sauce since I am out of salt. While those flavors start creating a heady aroma along with a bit too much pepper, I rough chop the potatoes and carrots, and don't forget the apple. They go in, one by one, letting the potatoes soak up the flavors first, then the carrots, finally the apple chips. Crumble the curry paste into the pot, and let it envelope the vegetables before adding broth (I used vegetable broth), about 3 cups of it to make the sauce thick enough once it cooks on low heat for at least thirty minutes. One of the other things I had leftover in the kitchen was some corned beef that I had cooked two days ago and not wanting to waste it, I've put it into the curry for some meaty tastes.
The plate lying next to me reminds me of some japanese ramen place in HK that serves a mound of rice, some meat (usually tonkatsu but I must make do with the dried corned beef flakes), and the curry sinking into the rice. Comfort food, Sunday night, it's a perfect pairing.