Shokugeki: Start with an izakaya, making everyone cry

Chapter 226 Imitator

After that, it’s Mimasaku Subaru’s conger eel bento.

The exquisite lacquer red lunch box gives this meal a full sense of ceremony.

The moment he opened the lid, what he saw before the commander-in-chief, Leonora and Kageura Hisao was glutinous, fragrant and oily eel rice.

A burst of fragrance directly activates the sense of smell first.

How can I describe this fragrance?

It's a bit like the braised gravy bibimbap I had when I was a kid, which makes me want to eat more.

Regardless of the handling of the conger eel, the plate design, the combination of ingredients, etc., or even the style and rhythm, his Mimasaku Subaru's cuisine is almost the same as Soma's.

"Wow!"

"Isn't that too exaggerated?"

"From the kitchen utensils to the knife skills to the portions of ingredients, they are exactly the same!"

"Meisaku Subaru is indeed Totsuki's strongest imitator."

The melon-eaters in the audience exclaimed repeatedly.

At this moment, Nakiri Senzaemon, who was sitting on the review bench, couldn't help but pick up a sheet of Mimasaku Subaru's student performance information.

This table records some of his performance since the beginning of school, including entrance examinations, project training, residential training, and his...

99 shokuji matches!
"Ok?"

"He actually won 99 games?"

After taking a few glances, the commander-in-chief was secretly surprised.

And he also discovered that the Meisaku Subaru in front of him was not good at any kind of cooking, nor did he have a particularly obvious cooking style.

Every time he makes a dish, he directly adopts the strategy of copying the other party.

Then, add your own understanding and make changes.

Use this to surpass others!
By the way.

Relying on this replica cooking method, he has never failed so far!
“Transcendence in imitation?”

"To be honest, I don't like this method very much."

"After all, chefs should have their own innovation and style, and always stealing other people's results for your own use is totally unbecoming of a gentleman."

Leonora Nakiri, who was also a judge, fell into deep thought, and her bright eyes became dark.

……

When it comes to cooking, start simple.

What is "learning"?
It’s nothing more than learning those simple dishes, and then slowly learning more advanced recipes!

No one knows how to cook with a spoon when they are born, they all have to learn.

Ordinary people usually go to the meat and vegetable store early in the morning to buy some ingredients, then search for recipes on the Internet, follow the recipes, and try the written recipes, and they always work.

And the dishes made, no matter how good they are, can satisfy the whole family!

thus.

There is nothing shameful in itself about copying other people's recipes.

But in the eyes of Leonora Nakiri, ordinary people can do this.

But if a Totsuki student like Mimasaku Subaru still cooks in this way, it will be too cheap and cannot reflect the value of a professional chef at all!
"Quack quack!"

"Judge, I did imitate his original cooking."

After hearing this, Meisaku Subaru showed a weird smile and continued: "But this does not mean that my sea eel bento has not been modified."

"Oh?"

Leonora frowned slightly.

Immediately, she stared at the steaming bowl of conger eel bento in front of her, and finally thought of something.

Involuntarily, she stopped talking and started to use her chopsticks.

……

Grilled eel in caramel color.

Crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, it melts in your mouth and tastes fish oily...

Indeed, judging from the appearance, there is no difference between the two sea eel bentos, but after tasting it, you can find that Mimasaku Subaru's eel meat has a stronger flavor!
Some people think that eel bento is just a piece of fish placed on rice?
Ah!
Not really!

In the neon country, behind every eel rice.

In fact, countless craftsmen have worked hard for it. It takes three years to cut open the fish, eight years to string the fish, and a lifetime to cook the fish. This is a reflection of every eel master.

Just to slaughter eels requires the use of a sharp-edged knife.

The edges, bones and pieces must be cut quickly, accurately and ruthlessly, and then the slippery fish must be fixed with eel nails.

Learned to kill fish.

The next step is to string fish.

It is different from skewered chicken wings and eel slippery hands. The place between the fish skin and meat is very thin.

Only when the cook is familiar with the texture of a cow can he find the right place to insert it. At the same time, he must also control the distance between the bamboo sticks to prevent the eel from falling into the charcoal fire.

As for kabayaki-roasted eel, it takes a lifetime of study to acquire superior skills.

Maybe he has been following Joichiro to run the Yukihira restaurant since he was a child, so Soma has a very unique insight into the "bento" civilian cuisine.

in his cognition.

The eel is important, but so are the rice and sauce.

In his sea eel bento, the eel and rice are eaten in the mouth. At first, the skin of the eel is crispy, and then the fish meat is soft but not loose.

Next comes the glutinous rice. The addition of green onions and seaweed adds a fresh and fresh flavor...

The whole dish has complex and diverse flavors, but it is also:
So harmonious!

……

On the other hand, Subaru's cooking is beautiful.

The handling of eels should be even more perfect.

However, doing so directly caused the eel taste to overwhelm the rice, causing the commander-in-chief and others to eat the eel, but almost forgot the rice.

Food is often so wonderful. If you discover more of the same taste, you will have more expectations and curiosity about the world.

Finally, the three judges stopped tasting and entered the judging stage.

When the commander-in-chief stood up, in front of everyone's attention, he announced that the winner of the third round of the game was Yukihira Soma.

The entire venue.

Undoubtedly, it is boiling and sensational again!
"how is this possible?"

Knowing that he had lost, Meisaku Subaru found it hard to accept, and his eyes suddenly became fierce.

His appearance was a bit scary, and his ugly face instantly turned ferocious, as if full of unwillingness and incomprehension.

"eel."

"How does it taste at the end?"

“To a large extent, it depends on the skill of the chef.”

"Your reproduction ability is very strong, especially in the process of grilling eel in Kabayashi, your control of the heat is flawless."

"Although we should grasp the time interval between each flip, how many times should we flip it, etc.?"

"There are no fixed answers to these questions!"

"But depending on the size and fatness of the eel, it will be flipped 20-30 times, and the sea eel you used may need to be flipped twice more." "Therefore, the skin of the eel you grilled will be slightly crispy. The skin is fat but not greasy, and the fish meat is soft and elastic!”

"Logically speaking, when it comes to eel processing, you are more serious and delicate than Sozhen."

"So, the winner should be you."

"But……"

“The best bento food.”

"It should be eel and sauce wrapped in grains of rice, with a perfect balance of sweet, salty and fresh."

"Instead of relying on the eel to dominate the scene, it can only play its perfect role in its own position, and it must not cover up the sweetness of the rice!"

Leonora explained so clearly that Subaru was speechless.

……

have to say.

Subaru is beautiful, although his appearance is a bit miserable, and his appearance is a bit disappointing to the audience.

But his cooking skills, especially his ability to imitate subtle things, are definitely a bug.

This character does not appear many times in the original work.

But in fact, it cannot be underestimated!
This can be seen from his unbeaten record of 99 games.

Moreover, Mimasaku Subaru's imitation is not just imitation. On the contrary, he really improves it while imitating it, and then surpasses the original dish.

Just like in this game, after imitating Soma's bento dishes, he actually made some changes in the handling of eels. This is a great attempt!
Therefore, despite losing, he left a deep impression on the Commander-in-Chief, Leonora and others.

……

They all say:

Knowledge, ahem, cheese is power!
Desserts always bring us infinite power.

No one can imagine how boring the world would be without desserts.

So after burgers, ramen, and bento, the cooking question for the fourth round of the quarterfinals is...

Dessert!

In Chinese kitchens, a bark-like spice, cinnamon, is often seen.

When stewing meat or cooking dishes, it is always indispensable to use it to remove the fishy smell and add fragrance.

Especially in traditional Chinese medicine shops, cinnamon will become a good medicine in the hands of many traditional Chinese medicine practitioners.

However, when you pass by the window of a Western-style bakery, a swirly cinnamon roll can stand out among the many European buns and occupy the high ground of your sense of smell with an extremely overbearing and rich aroma.

Hard to imagine, right?
It's obviously the same ingredients and the same spices.

But it can be presented in different ways in the east and west, which are far apart from each other.

But the similar names and aromas imply that they are inextricably linked?
As a tropical spice, cinnamon is mainly produced in China, Sri Lanka, India and Vietnam. Different places also give cinnamon different temperaments.

In the book "Food and Cooking: Fruits, Vegetables, Spices and Grains", cinnamon is mainly divided into two categories:

One type is Ceylon or Sri Lankan cinnamon, which is collected from Sri Lankan cinnamon wood. It is light brown in color and generally crispy in texture. It is rolled into a single-layer cinnamon stick with a light and delicate flavor and a sweet smell.

The other type is Southeast Asian or Chinese cinnamon.

This kind of cinnamon is often thick and hard, rolled into two layers, darker in color and much stronger in flavor, with a bitter taste.

Sometimes it can also cause pungent and burning sensations.

……

At this moment, at the competition venue.

Ryo Hayama is preparing to make a dessert called "Hawthorn Dark Chocolate Cinnamon Rolls".

He first mixed the brown sugar powder and cinnamon powder evenly, cut the walnuts into small pieces, then chopped the dark chocolate, put it into a small milk pot, and heated it over low heat for ten seconds until the chocolate melted.

Mix the dough ingredients, put it into the bread machine and knead it for 20 minutes. There is no need to knead out the dough, just make sure the surface is smooth.

Then put it on the chopping board to rest for 15 minutes, roll it out into a rectangle of about 30×20cm, spread a layer of chocolate sauce, be careful to press the bottom edge thin and do not spread the sauce.

Spread the cinnamon sugar evenly. It is recommended to use a flour sieve here, which will be more even than spreading by hand.

Spread another layer of chopped walnuts, roll it up into a column from top to bottom, and make knife cut marks every 3.3cm.

Ferment for 35 minutes at a temperature of 75 degrees and a humidity of 50%. Place it in the middle of the preheated oven and heat it up and down to 180 degrees for 18 minutes.

After baking, sift a layer of powdered sugar for decoration.

Finally, nutmeg is added to the cinnamon.

In this way, the texture of the entire cinnamon roll will become soft and moist. The warm and peppery aroma of nutmeg and cinnamon are combined, one is light and the other is rich.

……

On the other side, the opponent Tacomi is also busy. What he wants to make is an Italian dessert:
Shell mille-feuille!
Its Italian word, Sfogliatella, means "small, thin leaves."

This kind of dessert looks like delicate and thin leaves stacked on top of each other, and it also looks like a shell pattern.

The earliest ones can be traced back to the monastery in the 18th century.

Rumor has it that in 1818, a Naples pastry chef obtained the original recipe and began selling it in his dessert shop.

The most charming thing about this shell mille-feuille dessert is that the moment you bite it, you can completely achieve the ASMR effect. You can already imagine its wonderful taste just by listening to it!

So, soon, the shell mille-feuille became a classic daily dessert in Naples.

As for the real shell mille-feuille, the sound when the pastry is bitten must be crisp and pleasant enough to pass!

usually.

Shell puff pastry stuffed with rich ricotta cheese or whipped cream.

And the outer skin must be grilled hot to be crispy and crispy.

All in all, even though the shell mille-feuille is small, it is still very technical to make. It tastes quite substantial, and when paired with the fragrant Neapolitan coffee, it is just enough to relieve fatigue, and it definitely has a lot of calories.

……

All that was seen was that Tacomi added flour and salt to the mixing bowl.

Stir evenly, add honey and warm water, and continue stirring until the skin is smooth.

Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes, then cover it with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator to ferment for more than 1 hour.

After the dough is fermented, take it out and warm it up, divide it into four equal parts, put the dough into the pastry machine, and fold and press the noodles repeatedly until they are smooth and tough.

Spread the pressed dough on the work surface, brush with melted lard, and apply a thin layer. Pick up one end of the dough and slowly roll it into the shape of a ham sausage, wrap it tightly with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator.

Take out the refrigerated ham sausage-shaped dough, place it indoors to warm up, and cut the ham sausage-shaped dough into 1cm thick width.

Use your fingers to gently flatten it and make a shell shape in the center to make it easier to place the filling inside.

After completing this step, the next step is to make the filling.

……

Add milk, salt and sugar and bring to a gentle boil.

Slowly add cornmeal, stirring constantly, continuing to stir to avoid lumps and cook for 3 minutes, allowing to cool completely.

Add the ricotta cheese and one egg to the food processor and continue blending.

Add candied orange zest, cinnamon powder, and vanilla extract, stir until thick and creamy, cool and seal in the refrigerator.

"In the last round, the dessert dishes of the two contestants were so unpopular."

"I heard that Ryo Hayama has an extraordinary sense of smell, so I'm really looking forward to his cooking!"

The commander-in-chief couldn't help but murmured as he had a panoramic view of the process of making desserts.

(End of this chapter)