Are you missing that Wagamama feeling? Are you getting cravings for their banging bang bang cauliflower? Are you in need of some beautiful steamed buns (I know what you’re thinking so get your mind out of the gutter)? Well, have no fear as they seem to have us covered having released their recipes for the world to see and cook on the Wagamama UK Instagram.
They have released recipe videos and ingredient lists for some of their crowd favourite recipes such as yaki sobas of many variations (vegan and otherwise), chilli chicken ramen and they have even hosted a gyoza workshop. Their videos are brought to us by Steve Mangleshot, executive chef at Wagamama, from his home accompanied by some adorable doggo appearances.
They kicked off their Wok from Home campaign with their most synonymous dish, 10 points if you can guess it correctly (I have officially done too many Zoom quizzes). Of course, it’s katsu curry. They released a vegan yasai katsu curry recipe as well as one for chicken katsu curry. I decided to give their chicken katsu curry recipe a try to see if I could recreate that beautiful dish in my humble abode. According to my mum I must have succeeded considering she proclaimed ‘That’s the best thing you’ve ever cooked!’ (not the three course Mother’s Day Meal, no). I must say, this is rather an accolade considering the restaurants are never her first lunch spot choice when out for a day of shopping.
I was inspired to give this recipe a go for three reasons. One, this is my go-to order at Wagamama being a massive fan of chicken fried in any form, sticky rice and that almost chip shop curry sauce but far more fragrant and creamy. Two, I have been inspired by many other Instagrammers to give this recipe a go as it’s a lot of fun and just looked so darn tasty on my feed. Three and probably most importantly, I will not be defeated by a Japanese style curry sauce as has happened in previous attempts.
I have attempted such style sauces before and have not succeeded, ending with a bitty and grainy textured dark sauce, far from the golden delight served steaming hot from the Wagamama kitchens. I always knew my issue with the sauce’s texture stemmed from not cooking out the raw spices enough before adding any liquid and so I was aware of this potential pitfall and made sure I did not fall foul of it again. The recipes I have used previously also did not contain coconut milk which lightened the sauce in colour and texture and made for a creamy finish.
I had to double the quantities of the sauce recipe as it only feeds 2 and I’m cooking for parents and a sibling over here. This did cause a bit of uncertainty in my mind when Steve would say add around this amount of coconut milk or cook for around this amount of time until the spices have cooked down as there was some room for interpretation. The stakes were high here people, I did not want to admit defeat, not again. If you are doubling the recipe you don’t need the full doubled amount of 600ml of chicken stock as the sauce would be far too runny. I would say you need around 400/450ml of stock and around 160ml of coconut milk.
One of the sentiments I took from the video is that everyone’s take on the sauce will be different; the recipe is open to adjustments and that’s the beauty of it, I added a pinch of salt and a squeeze of lime juice to taste. Just use your common cooking sense. If you feel the sauce is getting too loose, stop adding the stock and coconut milk and keep cooking it out to let the flour do its thing. Another tip is to ensure you cook out the spices and flour for long enough respectively, I would say it took a little longer than the 1 or 2 minutes recommended in the video. Despite these small adjustments, the recipe and video are pretty great and I would recommend everyone give it a go to try and achieve that eating out feeling while staying safe at home.
I served my creation with breadrcrumbed (pané if you are feeling fancy) fried chicken, rice and a mixed leaf salad with the iconic Wagamama dressing (also available on their Instagram). As said in the video, ‘it’s Katsu heaven’ and I can finally say I conquered the curry sauce.
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