Kyuushoku Series : Red Lime Curry with Ginger Rice

Kyuushoku, also known as "spew-shoku" or simply "The Shock" by native speaking English teachers in Japan, is the Japanese school lunch. Introduced as part of post-war reconstruction during the modernisation of Japan, it was designed to ensure that the future of Japan (the children) would have at least one good meal a day. Well, good in the sense that it at least resembled a nutritionally sound meal for young people.

Different kinds of kyuushoku. 1950s and 1927s on the right.
I think it's legislated that kyuushoku must make
economy airline food look like Heston Blumenthal
is up the back of your plane cooking up a storm.

It still continues on today, and is generally prepared in a master kitchen centre and trucked out to the different schools served by that centre. A centre can serve a number of junior high school and elementary schools, and they will usually send out a bread item or rice item (carbohydrate), some kind of soup or stew (vegetables & proteins) and another item such as a piece of fish or gyoza or a hanburger patty (vegetables & proteins) and to round this repast off, some fruit or yoghurt. And ALWAYS a carton of milk.

Well, school has resumed and I am still without my kitchenware. I've been struggling by with my $8 frypan from the supermarket and 2-3 pyrex bowls but today I snapped and bought a proper microwave rice cooker. Basically, a microwave pot with a close fitting lid, inner rack and a steam release valve, it allows you to steam vegetables or meats or produce delicious rice!

As a celebration I thought I would share with you some of my own school lunches. One benefit to teaching is the regular allotted breaks and meal times - make it easy to keep to a diet and being busy and on your feet all day can discourage snacking. But when you sit down to lunch, you want something that will keep you going until you get home in the evening but won't make you fall asleep during the afternoon classroom fade.

I like rice meals for this because, although the rice has a high glycemic index the rest of the meal consists of proteins and vegetables that are low GI - the net effect of which is that you don't feel especially sleepy after eating. They're not particularly heavy to eat and because the portion size of the rice is small in comparison to the rest of the meal, it's just a good healthy meal. I usually have a piece of fruit with lunch as well which leaves me full up.

I usually get 5 portions out of these recipes - 4 for the freezer for lunches and one for dinner. And they only take about 20 minutes to knock together too. First up is a delicious Thai-style Red Lime Curry.

It uses a red curry paste, but it doesn't come out red. ILLUSION!!!!

Ingredients (makes 5 portions)

• 3 tbsp Red Curry Paste
• 1 Large Onion
• 1 440g Can of Chickpeas
• 1/2 tbsp Olive Oil
• 1 tbsp Butter
• 1 tbsp Minced Ginger
• 2 Limes (juice only - fresh is best)
• 125g Beef/Chicken
• Pinch each sugar, salt, cracked pepper
• 2 cups medium grain white rice
• 4 cups boiling water (for rice)
• 2 cups boiling water (for curry)

 Method

1. Finely dice onion.
2. Finely slice beef and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
3. Rinse rice thoroughly, then add the juice of one lime and the minced ginger to rice. Mix thoroughly.
4. Add boiling water to rice and microwave for 10 minutes.
5. Heat olive oil in non-stick pan and add red curry paste when hot.
6. Fry off curry paste for about a minute, then add onion. Cook until soft and translucent.
7. Add chickpeas (including liquid from can) and 2 cups boiling water.
8. Simmer for 10 minutes or until liquid amount is reduced by half.
9. Roughly mash chickpeas with back of spoon, then add beef.
10. Wait for liquid to reduce by half again and add juice of 1 lime.
11. Add butter just before serving.
12. Serve over rice.

Cooking Notes

• Fresh lime is soooooo much better than bottle juice. Don't use the plastic stuff - it's just naaaaasty.
• If using fresh limes, just roll them with a little pressure on the bench before juicing. You'll get a larger amount of juice from them.
• You can leave out the butter if you want, but this meal is just so low in oil and fat generally that I reckon you can get away with adding the butter. It makes the chickpeas creamy delicious, and because of the acidity of the lime juice it doesn't feel oily or heavy.
• Lime & Ginger rice is awesome. It smells so heavenly when cooking. If you're doing something with a coconut curry, try lime & ginger rice. Thank me later. Actually, no thank me now. Before you get so damn popular you don't remember who to thank.