Welcome to another post where I attempt to mimic a Shokugeki no Souma dish that's so tasty it blows the clothes off the judges. My recipes are tasty, but I must admit that my clothes don't go anywhere while I’m eating them. Maybe I need more salt. As the competition is heating up this season, the dishes are becoming much more intricate. The Tōtsuki students have come a long way, and I'm doing my best to keep up with their culinary prowess. Last time I cooked up an entire bento box based on Souma’s dish, but now I’m drawing inspiration from 3 different chefs for 3 very different dishes. O meshiagare!
Episode 2: Paitan Ramen
This paitan ramen is basically Megumi on a plate. The broth is light, reflecting the pure and comforting aura Megumi naturally exudes. She just wants to make food that will make people happy, not something so spicy it would make you want to drink a litre of water. Her ramen also has a heavy emphasis on vegetables, as she loves growing her own crops. Finally, the dish is influenced by her home town and the local ingredients found there, which is a more literal descriptor of her origins. This is a signature dish only Megumi could make...And now we get to eat it too!
INGREDIENTS:
- 1/2 package of ramen noodles (if you use cup ramen noodles, you’ll make Megumi cry)
BROTH
- chicken bones (I used a leftover carcass from a roasted, whole chicken)
- 1/2 cup dried scallops
- 1 small carrot, chopped
- 1/4 cup dried black fungus, chopped roughly
- 1/3 cup dried shiitake mushrooms
- 6 cups water
- 2 tablespoons white soy sauce (just use regular soy sauce if you can't find it)
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 tablespoon mirin
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
TOPPINGS
- 6 green beans
- 1 small potato, cubed
- 1 gobo root, peeled and shredded
- 1/4 block of tofu, cubed
- handful of black fungus (from the broth)
- handful of shiitake mushroom (from the broth)
- handful of carrots (from the broth)
- NOTE: feeling lazy? Cook all the toppings not already from the broth in the same pot and it should work out somehow!
RECIPE:
1. Boil chicken bones in 6 cups water for ~45 minutes. Having some meat fall off the bone into the soup is great!
2. Remove carcass, and skim fat off the top of the broth.
3. Add scallops, dried mushrooms, black fungus and chopped carrots to broth
4. Turn heat to low, then cover with a lid and allow to simmer for 15 minutes
5. Remove the lid. Remove some black fungus, carrots, and shiitake, and set aside to be used as topping.
6. Add soy sauce, garlic powder, mirin, sesame oil, and 1 cup of water to the soup and let it cook uncovered for 30 minutes.
7. While waiting for your soup to boil down, heat up some water in a separate pot to cook some of the toppings. Cut up the green beans, potatoes, gobo and tofu.
8. Cook the tofu at low-med heat until cooked before removing
9. Cook the green beans at medium heat until cooked (but still crisp) and then place in ice cold water to keep the bright green colour
10. Cook the gobo and potatoes at med-high heat until the potatoes are soft.
11. Finally, cook the ramen noodles on high heat for a short period of time, until al dente. If you are not consuming the ramen immediately, you may want to keep the noodles in a separate container from the soup. If you're impatient like me, put the noodles right into your soup when it's done and enjoy!
Episode 3: Pita Burger
At first, I'm usually a little dubious at some of the food pairings in this show. I'm not a fan of onions, so I balked at the notion of soaking a heap of them in spiced honey and then dumping the resulting mess into a pita. But I couldn't just conveniently leave out Akira's secret weapon, so I sighed and made it anyways. “I’ll put the dumb onions in for the photo and then just pick them off after when I eat it.” I thought to myself.
This ended up being one of the most delicious Shokugeki no Souma dishes I've ever recreated – onions included! Akira really knows his spices, and everything pairs together perfectly to balance the gaminess of the lamb. This is very, very different from the above dish by Megumi. I'm glad Shokugeki no Souma doesn't just showcase Japanese cooking, as I'm learning a lot about how to use seasoning other than the holy soy sauce/mirin/sugar trinity.
INGREDIENTS:
- 9 pitas (this recipe makes approximately 9 pita burgers)
PATTY
- 1/2 kg ground beef
- 1/2 kg ground lamb
- 1 teaspoon fresh mint, torn roughly into pieces
- 1/4 teaspoon dried mint
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1/4 teaspoon chili flakes
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 3 tablespoons bread crumbs or panko
KEBAB
- 1/2 kg thinly sliced beef marinated in 5 tablespoons worchestershire sauce and 2 teaspoons cumin
- NOTE: if you actually have leftovers from a kebab, use that instead!
ACHAAR
- 2 white onions, chopped roughly
- 1 bottle (around 375g) honey
- 1 teaspoon each of paprika, star anise, garlic, pepper, cloves, chilli, lemon, shredded ginger
- 3 tablespoons rice vinegar
YOGURT SAUCE
- 5 tablespoona plain yogurt
- 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1/4 teaspoon fresh parsley, chopped roughly
- juice of half a lemon
- pinch of salt
RECIPE:
1. Pour the honey in a small sauce pan on low heat, until the honey becomes a runny liquid. Remove from the heat as soon as this happens.
2. Add the onions and all the achaar spices to the honey and mix well
3. Once cooled, place in the fridge to marinate overnight. If you're tight for time, the flavour should start to set in within an hour
4. Thoroughly mix all the patty ingredients in a large bowl
5. Form the mixture into about 9 thin patties (to ensure they cook all the way through)
6. Heat up a frying pan with oil on med-high heat and cook the patties under the interior is completely cooked. Set the patties aside
7. Turn the heat up to high and quickly cook the thin beef
8. Mix all the yogurt sauce ingredients in a small bowl
9. Place your pita in the oven and cook at 400 degrees F until puffy (around 5 to 10 minutes)
10. To assemble your pita, place the patty on the bottom, followed by the yogurt sauce, achaar, and the kebab meat. Be careful not to burst the pita open!
Episode 6: Oxtail Stew
I want to call Mimasaka a fraud for shamelessly copying recipes instead of inventing his own, but then again, that’s what I’m doing right now! The difference here is that I’m not ruthlessly crushing the dreams of chefs I’m drawing inspiration from. Although I’m not a fan of the guy, I still ended up copying his copy of Souma’s dish. So please enjoy the third generation of copycat dishes that includes my own added twist..or two.
INGREDIENTS:
- 1.5 kg oxtail
- 1/4 cup flour
- pinch of salt
- pinch of pepper
MATIGNON
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 1 carrot, finely diced
- 1 large onion, finely diced
- 2 stalks celery, finely diced
- 1 tablespoon of flour
SAUCE
- 5 cups beef broth
- 1 tablespoon whole cloves
- 1 tablespoon lapsang souchong loose leaf tea (or any smoky black tea)
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 sprig fresh thyme
- 1 small bunch of tarragon
- 1 small sprig of parsley
- 2 tablespoons oxtail seasoning
- 1 tablespoon Chinese 5 spice
- 1 tablespoon white miso paste
- 2 tomatoes, cubed
GARNITURE
- 1 carrot, chopped
- 5 pearl onions
- 5 button mushrooms
- 2 strips thick cut bacon
RECIPE:
1. Heat a frying pan with oil on high heat until it’s hot. Coat oxtail in flour, salt, and pepper and then brown it in the pan so only the outside is cooked. Set the oxtail aside
2. In large frying pan, melt butter and then add finely diced carrots, celery and onion. Sautee until everything starts to soften and then add 1 tablespoon of flour and mix well
3. In a separate, large pot, boil beef broth. Once boiling, add the carrots, celery and onion from the frying pan
4. Combine cloves, lapsang souchong, the bay leaf, thyme, tarragon, and parsley into either a cheesecloth that you tie shut or a disposable tea bag container and let it steep to flavour the broth during the cooking period. DO NOT EAT THIS!
5. Add the oxtail to the mixture and once again let the mixture boil before reducing the heat so it simmers. Keep it simmering, uncovered, for 2 hours. In the last 10 minutes, reduce the heat even further and add the tomatoes and white miso paste. Stir well
6. While waiting for the oxtail, let's cook the garniture! Using the same frying pan as before, set the stove to high heat and add the bacon once the pan is hot
7. Once cooked on both sides, remove and place on a paper towel to dab off the oil. Keep the bacon fat in the pan to cook the rest of the garniture
8. Reduce heat to medium-high and add the pearl onions. Once they start to turn transparent, gently tilt the pan and spoon hot bacon fat over the top of the onion so it cooks all the way through
9. After about 8 minutes, add the mushrooms and continue to cook those as well
10. When the oxtail is ready, give it a final taste to see if more salt/seasoning is needed
11. Mimasaka's delicate plating strains the broth, but I recommend just pouring the whole thing in a bowl and then putting the garniture on top. Enjoy!
I hope you all enjoyed the second course of Shokugeki no Souma dishes! I did my best to follow the recipes from the show as closely as possible, but sometimes I couldn't help but do my own thing. I may not be ready to challenge anyone to a Shokugeki any time soon, but I can at least make myself a mighty fine dinner after work.
About Overcooled of Metanorn:
A neuroscience graduate, black belt, and all-around nerd. You'll either find me in my lab or curled up in my rilakkuma kigurumi watching anime.
She also cooked a bunch of stuff from Sword Art Online here.
