Curry me up

Japanese curry, which I made with chicken breast and diced carrot, potato, and onion, and served over a combination of brown and white jasmine rice. I know it's better to make the curry base from scratch, as those spice blocks are full of palm oil and who knows what else, but having a box of the stuff in the pantry makes cooking up a potful of curry on the spot so much easier (I picked up the packets at Mitsuwa before I left NYC). Using the blocks makes me an "irresponsible cook" according to Hiroko Shimbo in this article, but also a much happier one.

I could have tried to top the curry with pork katsu, but I chose the healthful option and went with a spoonful of watermelon pickle (which was not a fail this time) instead. I was thinking of fukujinzuke, the sweet radish pickles that sometimes accompany curry when the dish is served in restaurants; this was definitely not the same, but strangely enough, the combination still worked.