Name: Soup Curry (Sapporo Spiced Broth with Chicken and Roasted Vegetables)
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 1 h 30 min
Total time: 2 h
Yield: 2 servings
Cuisine: Japanese
Ingredients: 2 chicken legs (drumsticks); 1 tsp salt; 0.5 tsp black pepper; 2 onions; 4 cloves garlic; 1 tbsp ginger; 1 tomato; 1.2 L chicken stock; 200 ml katsuobushi dashi; 1 tbsp soy sauce; 1 tsp cumin seeds; 1 tsp coriander seeds; 3 pods green cardamom; 3 cloves; 1 piece cinnamon; 1 bay leaf; 2 tbsp curry powder; 0.5 tsp turmeric; 0.5 tsp cayenne pepper; 2 potatoes; 1 carrot; 1 aubergine; 1 green pepper; 4 florets broccoli; 4 slices lotus root; 4 tbsp neutral oil; 2 bowls cooked rice; 1 egg

Ingredients

2servings

Serves 2
chicken legs (drumsticks) · bone in. Standing one whole in the bowl is the look of this dish, so boneless is a poor substitute2
salt · for the chicken1 tsp
black pepper · for the chicken0.5 tsp
For the broth
onions · thinly sliced; cooked to brown, they carry the sweetness and the body2
garlic · crushed4 cloves
ginger · grated1 tbsp
tomato · diced, or 1 tbsp tomato paste1
chicken stock · this is a thin soup, so the liquid ratio is high. With a stock cube, salt at the end1.2 L
katsuobushi dashi · optional. Sapporo shops blend in Japanese dashi for savour, not for curry aroma200 ml
soy sauce1 tbsp
Spices
cumin seeds · whole; the aroma lasts longer than ground1 tsp
coriander seeds · whole1 tsp
green cardamom · whole, lightly crushed3 pods
cloves3
cinnamon · about 3cm1 piece
bay leaf1
curry powder · Japanese curry powder or garam masala. Powder, not a roux block2 tbsp
turmeric · this is what gives the colour0.5 tsp
cayenne pepper · the heat level is set here0.5 tsp
Vegetables (cooked separately)
potatoes · whole if small, halved if large, skin on2
carrot · split lengthways. Do not dice it small1
aubergine · quartered lengthways1
green pepper · halved, seeds out1
broccoli · large florets4 florets
lotus root · optional; 1cm thick4 slices
neutral oil · for cooking the vegetables4 tbsp
To serve
cooked rice · served on the side. Not poured into the soup, which is close to the definition of the dish2 bowls
egg · soft-boiled and halved1

Steps

Salt and pepper the chicken legs all over and leave them 30 minutes. A bone-in leg is thick, and surface seasoning does not reach the middle on its own — this is the time the salt needs to travel inwards.
⏲ 30 min
Set a heavy pot over medium heat and toast the cumin, coriander, cardamom, cloves and cinnamon dry, 1-2 minutes. Stop the moment the aroma lifts. Waking whole spices first is what separates this from a broth made with curry powder alone.
⏲ 2 min
Add 2 tbsp oil and the sliced onions and cook 15-20 minutes, until browned. Rush this and the broth has no sweetness or body and tastes like spiced water. There is no roux here to thicken it, so the onions carry the body.
⏲ 20 min
Add the garlic and ginger for 30 seconds, then the curry powder, turmeric and cayenne for 20 seconds more. Unlike whole spices, ground ones burn almost immediately.
⏲ 20 sec
Add the tomato and crush it into the onions, then pour in the stock and dashi with the soy sauce and bay leaf. The chicken does not go in yet.
In a separate pan, heat 1 tbsp oil and sear the seasoned legs skin side down for 5 minutes over high heat to colour them. Simmered raw in the broth the skin goes flabby and the soup turns cloudy.
⏲ 5 min
Move the seared legs into the broth, cover, and simmer gently for 40-50 minutes. The meat should come away from the bone, but never let it boil — a bare steam is what keeps the broth clear.
⏲ 50 min
Meanwhile boil the egg for 7 minutes and cool it in cold water. That leaves the centre of the yolk just barely runny.
⏲ 7 min
In a wide pan with a generous film of the remaining oil, cook the potato, carrot and lotus root first, then the aubergine, pepper and broccoli, 10-15 minutes in all. Take them out browned outside and only just done inside. This is the whole reason the vegetables are not simmered in the soup: colour and shape survive.
⏲ 15 min
Taste the broth. Flat on salt, add salt; flat on aroma, another half tablespoon of curry powder; too heavy, a splash more water. Set the heat with cayenne at the end. This broth should be thin enough to drink.
Pour the soup into deep bowls, stand a chicken leg in each, and pile on the roasted vegetables and half an egg. Serve the rice separately. Dipping a spoonful into the soup, or ladling a little soup over the rice, is the Sapporo way; pouring it over from the start is how you eat curry rice.

Tips & Variations

Variations

How it differs from curry rice: Japanese curry rice is thickened with a flour-and-fat roux and poured over the rice. Soup curry uses no roux, so the liquid stays thin, the rice comes separately, and the vegetables are cooked apart and added at the end. Same spices, opposite approach to consistency (thickening sauces).
Ramen grammar applied to curry: a common reading of why it was born in Sapporo. Like ramen, it cares about the clarity and savour of the broth and cooks its toppings separately. The dashi many shops blend in comes from the same instinct (stocks and broth).
Lamb and seafood versions: both standard on Sapporo menus. Lamb stands up to a heavier spice hand; seafood is the reverse and goes in only for the last three or four minutes of a finished broth. This is the version ko.wikipedia has in mind when it describes the dish as carrying "seafood, vegetables and other ingredients".
Heat levels: shops conventionally sell it graded 1 to 10. Rather than putting the cayenne in the pot, serve it on the side for each person to add and one batch feeds both the chilli-inclined and everyone else (chilli and heat).
Deep-fried vegetables: fried at 170°C instead of pan-cooked, the potato and lotus root are far crisper. Common in shops, at the cost of a lot of oil (deep-frying).
In the oven: roast the vegetables at 200°C for 20-25 minutes and you need not stand over a pan. Less deep than the pan, but easier at volume.
Other curries here: butter chicken gets its body from dairy, green curry and poo pad pong curry from coconut milk, and dal from the pulses themselves. Soup curry does none of it.

Tips

The absence of a roux is the whole dish. No flour roux, no coconut milk, no cream. That leaves browned onion and chicken bone as the only things giving the broth body, so skimping on either gives you burnt-spice water.
Do not shorten the 15-20 minutes of browning the onions. This is where the dish most often fails. Turning the heat up to save time just scorches the outsides without drawing the sweetness out (heat control, browning).
Whole spices first, ground spices later. Whole ones tolerate a minute or two in a dry pan; ground ones burn in twenty seconds. Reverse the order and the bitterness stays in the whole pot (blooming spices).
Always sear the chicken first. Browned skin holds together through forty minutes of simmering, and what comes off the searing pan is the depth of the broth (cooking meat and resting).
Never let the broth boil. A rolling boil emulsifies the fat and clouds it, and clarity is the point here. Hold it at a bare steam (stocks and broth).
Cook the vegetables separately, without exception. In the pot, forty minutes turns the broccoli olive and collapses the aubergine. Roasting them apart and adding them last is the method of the dish (blanching vegetables).
Cut the vegetables big. Potatoes whole, carrot split lengthways. Cut small, they sink and go mushy; they have to stay in large pieces to read against the soup (knife skills).
Serve the rice on the side. Not pouring it over is close to the definition of the dish. Let the rice drink the broth and you have curry rice, and the reason for making it thin is gone (cooking rice).
Season at the very end. The broth reduces over forty to fifty minutes, so seasoning set at the start is too salty by the finish — especially with a stock cube (balancing flavour).
Thin is not a failure. The first time you make it, it will look under-done to you. That is correct: drinkable is the target consistency.
Better the next day, except the vegetables. A night's rest settles the spices in the broth. The vegetables have to be cooked fresh, though — left soaking overnight there was no point cooking them apart (reviving leftovers).
Serve it hot. A thin broth cools far faster than a thick curry. Warming the bowls first makes a noticeable difference (serving temperature).

The basics behind this dish

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