Adventures in Cooking: The Wrath of Manjuu (カレマン）

I decided early on when I made my first batch of manjuu that I would make more; it's such a versatile idea that I knew there would be varieties other than anman that I'd want to make. Thus, instead of something sweet like anman I decided to make something more savory; curry manjuu (or カレマン [kareman]). Once again I followed the recipe here, and the steps are pretty much the same with a slightly different cast.


Here were the culprits; the big change from last time is the curry mix, chicken, carrots, and onion. I grabbed fryer chicken, but any chicken probably would have sufficed.


This time around I picked up a limited edition beer from Red Hook; a tripel. I'm not sure that it's really a good pairing, but I didn't eat these the same night so all was good.


The first thing I did was start baking the chicken; I rubbed a little bit of salt and pepper on the chicken and proceeded to bake it for about half an hour, turning it partway through. While this was going on, I started on some familiar steps like...


...proofing the yeast! Exciting, I know.


I also mixed the dough (and the yeast) while waiting for the chicken to bake. Due to the addition of tumeric to the dough, there's a nice strong yellow color to the dough. This means the manjuu will be even more delicious.


Now I'm stuck waiting for the chicken to bake and the dough to rise, so I suppose I should start with the rest of the manjuu filling. Similar to melting the chocolate for brownies, I started melting the curry roux blocks.


Eventually, the chicken finished baking and I pulled it out of the oven, cut it into pieces, and proceeded to chop the carrot and onion as well as some chives. As I chopped everything it ended up in a bowl, ready to go.


When the curry had melted, I went ahead and stirred it in with the other fillings. The mess didn't look appealing, but it's quite tasty!


As with last time, when the dough had finished rising I cut it into several small balls and rolled them out. When the dough was rolled out it was time to put a spoonful of filling on there and wrap up the manjuu.


And eventually I finished rolling up the manjuu! I definitely rolled several of them too thin, but they work. I proceeded to cover the completed manjuu and let it sit in my fridge overnight. The following day I put them in a plastic bag and put them in the freezer. Except for one, which I proceeded to cook...


.. and they were super tasty! I'm not sure I'd do anything different other than try to exercise a little more caution rolling out the dough. I've been cooking these for breakfast for a little while now.


I'm running low though, and may need to start another batch. They're super easy to cook since they just steam for 15-20 minutes making them an ideal breakfast.