here's the report for IC:TOS ;-) also a mini-review of IC:TNG at the bottom, spaced away from the spoiler material for your convenience (I missed the last half this time because the 7pm start time here in LoCal interferes with my dinner prep, and I somehow managed to not set the VCR up correctly. arg.) - j -----Original Message----- So Cal Iron Chef Report Battle# 276 April 23, 1999 "Tarako (Cod Roe) Confront" Greetings, Iron Chef Fans: This is the report on "Tarako (Cod Roe) Confront", aired originally in Japan on April 23, 1999. Challenger: ----------- This is another return of Tadamich Ohta's Party of Heaven and Earth, the group of ultra right-wing chefs. Last time, the party was represented by Seiya Masahara in Angler Fish Confront (re: 6/13/1999) and finally won over Morimoto in their fourth try. Were they satisfied and went away? Noooo. Ohta said "The last win was too late in coming. I don't want you to think we are satisfied. We are not that soft. We will continue to attack Morimoto until he is out of business". So the party's main goal shifted somewhat from "to protect and exercise the Japanese traditional cuisine" to "beat up on Morimoto until he is out of it". How manly of them. Yuusuke Yamashita (38) was born as the son of a historic hotel in Saga, Japan. He was to succeed the hotel as its fourth generation master, but did not get into hotel / restaurant business until he graduated from college. He then entered his chef training at Kitchyo, a famous traditional Japanese restaurant in Kyoto, at his age of 23 (note that many of the chefs began their training at 18). At 28, he came home and (re)opened the hotel-restaurnat Ohgi-ya in Takeo Hot Springs. Though his training period seem shorter than some of the other chefs we've seen so far, but he is known the mastery of sake (Japanese rice wine) usage in his cooking. In fact, he brought to KS, many bottles of local wines (ji-zake) from all over Japan. So many that made Morimoto say "Yeah, I don't know about the challenger, but I'm curious about those bottles. I'd like to drink some". Not so coincidentally, the guest judge (the BDJ) Yukiko Kobayashi, a singer, is known for her drinking habit. She was "really looking forward to the tasting". Iron Chef: ---------- Iron Japanese Masaharu Morimoto. He is currently in two game losing streak (to Komei Nakamura, and to Seiya Masahara), and cannot lose any more. Komei resigned his Iron Chef position after suffering two consecutive losses. Should he lose, it is a new dishonorable record for a Tetsujin. "I'd be lying to you if I say that doesn't worry me. But I won't change my style. Never." Morimoto said. Theme Ingredient: ----------------- Tarako (Cod Roe). 14 lb. each of raw and salted roes. Salted ones are said to be only treated lightly, for flavor (as opposed to salting for preservation, which tend to be too strong for direct consumption). Hattori-san guaranteed its taste. Tarako is a hugely popular ingredient in Japanese cuisine, both gourmet and homely cooking. Typically, they lightly bake the salted roe and sprinkle over hot rice, or add some tea to the rice to make it a "chazuke (hot tea over bowl of rice)". Korean style roe marinated in chile sauce -- "Men-Tai-Ko" is very popular as well. Dishes: ------- Challenger Yuusuke Yamashita The challenger indicated that he came to prepare dishes with which you can enjoy sake, and he thinks he accomplish that goal. That means he is going to win. Or will he? First thing he did was to bring out three bottles (half gallon each) and started heating two of them in a sauce pan. He then poured it over to prepared snapper and kelp. This is called "Salt of Sake", a stock made of boiled sake and white meat fish. This is a "must" ingredient for the sake chazuke mentioned below. It was such a luxury to see him use a fresh, great looking red snapper (boy, it would taste good on sashimi, nabe, or almost anything) just to get this soup stock. He indicated that this soup came up so well, he will use it direct without adding tea to make the chazuke. - Cod Roe with Kinu-Sake Sauce Kinu is silk. I do not know what "kinu sake -- silk liquor" mean, but Yamashita used to its sweet flavor to properly flavor tarako roe. All judges agreed it tastes so delicate and elegant. - Lobster with Tarako Aromatic Sauce Yamashita blended tarako with sea urchin to make the sauce. The lobster dish was served raw first, then cooked on the heated stoneware and served again. Judges were pleasantly surprised to taste totally different flavors two ways. - Steamed Tarako and Mountain Vegetables Yamashita used variety of vegetables, mixed with tarako roe, then steamed in a sake based sauce. No comments from judges were shown. - Fried Lotus and Tarako Sorbet Yamashita added fruit tomatoes with salted tarako in ice cream maker to make this desert-like dish. Bland flavor of lotus matches the salty tarako flavor. One of the guest judge indicated the combination of lotus and tarako don't make sense, but the expert judge Hosogi said the overall balance of the flavor was excellent. - Sake-Tarako Chazuke This is the highlight. "Sake Ushio -- Salt of Sake" is poured over the rice sprinkled with salted tarako roe. Unlike Morimoto's (described below), the rice was not baked. The matured texture of sake based stock harmonizes greatly with the snapper's sweetness and aroma of tarako roe. Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto Morimoto said that he is not too worried about winning tonight, though he did add "it's good if I win". He said somehow, tonight's menu became more Japanese-ish than usual. And Morimoto didn't disappoint us. He wraps roe tarako roe with bacon. Something no one has seen or heard of before. He opens the roe inside out, to bring out a new texture. He skinned the roe and wrapped lobster meat with it. All so radically new, yet, something you feel like trying. Even Tadamich Ohta admits "Using tarako skin is a good idea. Well, what's he going to wrap with it?" Of course, he didn't forget to add some trash with it "Tarako and bacon? He's got to be crazy. That combination will never work". The famous last line. - Mentai-Shrimp Vichyssoise This is the one with lobster wrapped in tarako skin. The skin was pasted with Kochi-jiang, a Korean spicy sauce. Because of the skin, the texture on this dish is said to be very unique. Alas, they did not show the judges' comment on this dish. - Tarako Mayonnaise NY Style Morimoto blended tarako roe in mayonnaise, arrange with sliced bamboo shoot (ah, the flavor of spring; the show was originally aired in Japan on late April), then he baked it with a gas torch. Dietman Kurimoto said of this dish: "The mayo matches the roe unbelievably well". Hosogi added "This is great. Just great". Very high commendations from two of the expert judges, for such a simple looking dish. - Tarako and Lobster "Armored" Stew Morimoto made the tarako roe inside out, dipped in salt water, then cooked with lobster in a soup stock. The tarako absorbed lobster flavor to produce the sensitive, luxurious flavor. The newly found texture of inside out tarako roe also met with praise. Hosogi said of this dish: "It's been a while to see so Japanese a dish from you!" - Tarako Steak This is the one with bacon wrapped tarako. Morimoto then cooked them on a skillet with garlic. The bacon fat makes a curious match with tarako roe. No comments from the judges. - Baked Tarako Chazuke Morimoto blended salted tarako with steamed rice (a pretty standard thing to do; Hattori almost protested that it is not fair if Morimoto served tarako on rice, that while it is good, it's too simple), made rice balls with it, then baked it in the oven. Since chazuke is a rice dipped in tea, it is better to dry the rice. A little tidbit: while baking a rice ball sounds simple, it is not too easy in reality. Rice is hard and very time consuming item to bake. You will need an oven with high heat capacity, or it'll take long and you are likely to end up with burned rice. This simplistic dish, served with shredded dried kelp, was a hit. Kurimoto, "I fell I really tasted tarako in this". Hosogi was a bit more inquisitive "Is this just tarako to make this white broth? Just salt flavor of tarako only?" After all "yes" answers, she said "It's very good". Once again, the judge has to vote between strength of time proven recipe of the challenger versus extremely original, creative Morimoto dishes. And Now the spoiler!!! Don't read this if you don't want to know. SPOILER!! SPOILER!!! SPOILER!!!! SPOILER!!!!! SPOILER!!!!!! SPOILER!!!!!!! SPOILER!!!!!!!! SPOILER!! SPOILER!!! SPOILER!!!! SPOILER!!!!! SPOILER!!!!!! SPOILER!!!!!!! SPOILER!!!!!!!! SPOILER!! SPOILER!!! SPOILER!!!! SPOILER!!!!! SPOILER!!!!!! SPOILER!!!!!!! SPOILER!!!!!!!! It's a tie!!! The vote was 2-2; Kurimoto and female guest judge Kobayashi, gave it to challenger Yamashita, while male guest judge Mitamura and Hosogi voted for Morimoto. Yes, I felt (and eager to try out) both chef's dishes are extremely well made. It is such a high competition, it's shame Kanda and Ohta had to verge in with their own insecure egos (and the TV producer that takes advantage of them). But a good news is that you'll get to see these two again next week, where the 30 minute overtime will be fought. Bad news is the guest judges will have to sit around for couple more hours to taste the result. Ciao. P.S. I saw the Food Network version of Iron Chef the other night. more---V It is good now that many people gave up on IC due to lack of sub- titles and many more who never seen the show can now watch it with a degree of comprehension. Yes, I felt a lot has been lost due to the voice-over, which is too bad. But I don't think you could do much better job than they did. I remembered that episode though it was before I started publishing the report, since the challenger was from my home town Yokohama. I thought it was an appropriate one to start the series (the debut of Morimoto). I hope this will bring about more fans to the show. -ICR