Although rice is the famous staple food of Japan, eaten with almost every meal, the Japanese are no slouches when it comes to bread. Called pan in Japanese, from the Portuguese who introduced it, there are dozens of varieties available to sample. While the word "bread" likely calls up visions of a loaf of sliced bread, there other types which would look more like a doughnut to most gaijin, like the famous famous Anpan, round bread with different types of Japanese sweet beans inside, or Melon Pan, essentially a large piece of sweetened bread that looks like a honeydew melon cut in half -- or like a brain, which is why Japanese say eating it will make you smart. One of my favorite types of Japanese pan is Curry Pan, fried bread with spicy curry inside, yum. Why can't someone make this outside of Japan?

"Curry pan" is bread with delicious curry inside.
7 comments:
In Mexico we also love "pan" (yes, it is the same in spanish) and we do have a very similar version of melon pan. It is called "concha" which means "seashell" since that it what it looks like. It's basically the same but the decoration on top is more spiral.
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:PAN_EN_MEXICO.jpg
who will make it outside japan? perhaps i will. (curry will be first since i LOVE it! ;D)
I have a cookbook Morimoto and his curry pan recipe is probably the only thing in the whole book that the average chef could hope to make.
Here it is:
http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/cookbook/2007/morimoto-japanese-cooking/curry-pan.html
Jorge that's cool, there seems to be quite a deep connection between Spain/Mexico and Japan, among other things your lingages pronunciation is nearly exactly the same. Here is an update I did on Masamune Date, one of Japan's most famous daimyo back in the day.
Danisa, yes, curry is good. I wonder if they make it in India ^_^
Jeff, thanks for the recipe! I'll tweet it.
I had something similar with Indian curry at a Spar convenience store in London. Brilliance. Everything should be put into balls of dough and fried.
Bread?
It is still all WHITE.
Where's the rye, the sour-dough, the... I could go on for days.
Let me know where I can find some real bread and I'll be happy.
One of the breads that I use to think was totally weird, but actually work really well is the corn mayo bread. You can sometimes get curry pan at Japanese grocery stores in California. I know that the Nijiya chain has them sometimes. If your in San Francisco there is a bakery in Bernal Heights called Sandbox bakery that makes their own version of curry pan that is baked not fried. It's an okay substitute. Also in southern california there is curry house which is run by house foods usa. They have curry pan as a takeout item.
http://www.sandboxbakerysf.com/menu.html
http://www.house-foods.com/CurryHouse/menu.aspx
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