Blows minds, stimulates appetites.

As long as you like noodles, Japan is a wonderland of meal options for people whose cooking skills are limited to the ability to boil water. This is, after all, the birthplace of Cup Noodles instant ramen, as well as all sorts of instant soba and udon.

So when you look at this photo of a woman pouring water onto a block of yellowish brown foodstuff, you might assume she’s about to have some sort of Asian-style pasta for lunch.

But think again, because this is a non-noodle dish. As demonstrated in this video from Japanese Twitter user @ugaidensetu, that block is actually…

…Japanese-style katsu curry!

In what looks like nothing so much as aquatic sorcery, the block suddenly morphs into a sliced chicken cutlet, and the runoff water changes from clear to the unmistakable opaque brown of curry roux.

“Amano Food’s katsu curry is seriously brain-breaking, so even though it’s a little expensive, you should definitely try it at least once,” tweets @ugaidensetu. Amano Foods, a Hiroshima Prefecture-based subsidiary of food and beverage company Asahi, specializes in freeze-dried foods, and while their instant miso soup packets are popular among Japanese travelers who want a taste of home while overseas, their instant chicken katsu curry is less famous, though much more amazing.

But pouring hot water on something is similar to boiling it, so does the cutlet get soft and mushy, like noodles? Nope. @ugaidensetu reports that the cutlet’s breading stays nice and crispy (“unbelievably crispy,” to use the exact quote), and once you plate it, it looks pretty much indistinguishable from a freshly fried cutlet and curry combo.

▼ With a shelf life of six months, it’s also a pretty tempting mid-term disaster preparedness item to have on hand.

Amano Foods only offers its chicken katsu curry periodically, but if @ugaidensetu’s videos have you wanting to try it for yourself, you’re in luck, as it’s currently available through the company’s online shop here. At 1,400 yen (US$13) for two packs, it is indeed on the expensive side for instant food, but when you consider that you get a meal and a show for that price, it doesn’t seem like such a bad deal (and if you want a cool way to make your rice, too, we’ve got an idea).

Source: Twitter/@ugaidensetu via Hachima Kiko, Amano Foods
Featured image: Twitter/@ugaidensetu
Top image: Amano Foods
Insert images: Amano Foods, Twitter/@ugaidensetu
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Whenever you choose to follow Casey on Twitter, you can safely assume that he’s craving curry.