Sloppy Joe with a twist

I have watched enough Rachel Ray's show to know what's a Sloppy Joe. But I never seems to get around to make it until I saw a healthy version while browsing through a stack of food magazines. What caught my eyes wasn't the juicy meat sauce between two burger buns, but the fresh crisp wedges of Japanese cucumber at the side. These cucumber wedges will provide a similar visual appearance of long crispy fries and yet spared me the unwanted calories. Sometimes I do eat with my eyes.

I got really interested when I moved on to the list of ingredients. This Sloppy Joe is made with a Japanese twist! The special ingredient used in this recipe is this Japanese curry roux or curry block, easily available at most supermarkets. The recipe looks really promising as I was certain I would be able to get it right the first time.

So, the next thing you see me leaping from the armchair to the kitchen. In less than 30 mins, I transformed that few lines of instructions into a lunch time treat. A big pat on my shoulder :)

Making the ground beef mixture is as quick as making a meat sauce for a pasta dish. A light browning of chopped onions and some minced ginger (don't omit this, it creates a really nice aroma), followed by minced beef, and some water, Japanese curry block and some tomato paste or ketchup, your job is almost done.

I would love to serve this with homemade bread buns, but that would take a lot of pre-planning on my part. So I used store-bought hamburger buns...got them buttered on both sides and lightly toasted with a frying pan, of course you can toast the buns in the oven, but I find using a frying pan really speeds things up. I could assemble one burger while the other was still toasting in the pan.

Instead of sprinkling the cucumber wedges with coarse sea salt and some vinegar as recommended by the recipe, I chose to make a simple wasabi mayonnaise dipping sauce to go with it.

I usually do not strongly recommend my recipes...as the saying goes, one man's meat is another man's poison. This Sloppy Joe is one exception. I am confident that anyone who tries it will find it yumilicious. The Japanese curry roux gives a wonderful twist to this American dish...the taste of the curry is not too overpowering, and yet without it, it will be like sandwiching a tomato-based pasta meat sauce in between two buns. The sauce is thick enough, not too runny, even my younger child could eat it without creating a mess. Whatever sauce that was left behind on his plate, he cleaned it up with the cucumber slices ;)

I am happy to be able add a new item to my family menu...I bet I will have to cook this over a hundred times before my kids will ever get tired of eating it.


Japanese Curry Sloppy Joe

Ingredients:
(serves 2~3)

1/2 yellow onion, finely chopped
1 teaspoon minced ginger
2 tablespoons oil
250g minced beef
35g Japanese curry roux (curry block)
100ml water
2 tablespoons ketchup (I used tomato based pasta sauce)
2 to 3 hamburger buns, spilted, buttered and toasted
2 tomatoes, sliced
1 to 2 Japanese cucumbers, sliced into long thin wedges
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 teaspoon wasabi paste (adjust according to taste)

Method:

1. Slice Japanese cucumbers into long thin wedges, keep in fridge to chill. Mix wasabi and mayonnaise to a smooth consistency, set aside.
2. Heat oil in a skillet or pan over medium heat. Add onions and ginger and stir fry till lightly browned, about 3~4 mins.
3. Add minced beef and stir fry, breaking up lumps as it cooks, till well browned about 1~2 mins.
4. Add curry block, water and ketchup, stir and cook till the mixture thickens, about 1~2 mins. Remove from heat.
5. Spilt hamburger buns into halves, butter both sides and lightly toast them. For quick and easy toasting, I toast them over a hot frying pan.
6. Divide tomato slices between toasted buns, top with beef mixture. Serve with cucumber wedges and wasabi mayonnaise on the side.

Recipe source: adapted from Food & Travel magazine