I started out with some olive oil and 4 onions and stir-fried that to the mildly gelatinous stage, then threw in some carrots, garlic, tofu, and a bunch of yams. I forgot how much of a pain they are to cut so slowly sawing through them, I ran out of time with the stir-fry part and just added the water (and the reserved tofu water) and Japanese curry mix and chopped the yams into it laboriously.
Then put the lid on the dutch oven and into the stove for a long, low temperature cook. I've decided three hour at 250 but it might want more. It's already edible but I'm putting off eating it until it gets better than edible and to work up an appetite. About when it's done I'm going to make basmati rice to serve it over.
This is the curry mix, which is one of the better ones you can get without actually making it yourself.
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This is pretty nice stuff, and don't let "Extra Hot" intimidate you, Japanese concepts of hot aren't anything like, say, Thai concepts of hot. It has a smooth, mellow heat that comes on slowly and stays that way. Also, if you are shopping on the cheap it is nearly everywhere that has a section for Asian food, even a small one.
We'll see how it turns out. It's super heavy on the onions and yams, and I halved the main protein from two to one pound, and on top of that it's tofu.
The curry mix was $5 (but you can find it cheaper) and the "extravagant" part of it, with all other ingredients topping out at about $5 too. There are easily half a dozen meals in this so I hope I like it.