So Cal Iron Chef Report Battle# 295 September 17, 1999 "King of Tetsujin Tournament 1st Round: Bell Pepper Confront" Greetings, Iron Chef Fans: This is the second match of first round of "King of Tetsujin Tournament" aired originally in Japan on September 17, 1999. Prologue: --------- Last week, we saw Kenichi Chen defeated Katsuhiko Kobe for the right to advance to the final round. Today, we will see the other two, Iron French Hiroyuki Sakai and Iron Japanese Masaharu Morimoto go at it. Sakai is the second winningest Iron Chef of all, with the record of 64-13-1. (The winningest? Chen has 65-17-2 records. But then, Chen has been tetsujin the longest). So from the past record, Sakai decidedly has the edge. But Morimoto has his creativity that keeps pushing the edge of conventional recipes. Iron Chef Emeritus Rokusaburo Michiba made analog of historic Okehazama's battle. This is the battle fought back in 16th century Japan where Nobunaga Oda, a lord of small province in central Japan at the time, defeated much larger army of Yoshimoto Imagawa by running a surprise attack. Michiba is saying Sakai, like lord Imagawa, must not take it easy, or he'll be beheaded. The battle begins as Morimoto's wife, Keiko, and the staffs from Nobu Tokyo, on one side, La Rochelle (Sakai's restaurant) staff on the other look on. Of course, Kaga had something in mind to make this battle more interesting. Theme Ingredient: ----------------- Piment. Bell Pepper. Colorful ones. Kaga's favorite. [The statistics on number of bell peppers Kaga bites was never released -ICR] They prepared 50 each of red, yellow and green bell peppers, and 30 each of white, black and brown varieties. Aside from being one of the most memorable vegetable that Kaga bites on at every openings, it is interesting that (of all cook-offs they went through), neither chefs had this as theme ingredient before. This is such a tough material to make it a "main staple" of the course meal. It would be hard to match the classic from last week's Tokyo-X battle. These two chefs are already challenged from the start. I might add, of course, however slightly, this favors Sakai. Piment is not a favorite material for Japanese cuisine... Kenichi Chen had this to say: "Piment? That's tough. It is difficult to make it a main ingredient". Dishes: ------- Iron Japanese Masaharu Morimoto Morimoto said today, he focus on his origin, which he describes as "nothingness". No executive chef of Nobu, no Iron Chef, just nothing. This is buddhism state of selflessness. It takes him to start from there to defeat Sakai. No, winning does not matter at this point. He must do what he does. - Piment Cocktail Morimoto added yellow piment puree to vodka - soda mixture to make this drink. The yellow liquid looked pretty. But no tasting was shown. - Steamed Piment Custard Piment is one of more colorful vegetables. Tonight's dishes are more colorful than usual, and this is one of them. This chawan-mushi (steamed custard) has sweet bitterness of piment matched with sweetness of cream. Red and yellow piment colors it pretty. Sorry, no tasting of this dish, either. - Piment Stick Dip Morimoto stuffed meat sauce made with three Chinese type sauces ( Kon Mein Jyang, To Ban Jyang, Oyster sauce) to deep fried white piment. Dietman Kurimoto said "You'll love this dish even if you don't like piments". Michiba gave the highest form of flattery: "This is good. I learned something here. I'll use this recipe in my restaurant". - Shabu shabu of Piment "Sui-ton" Suiton, you might say, is a sort of Japanese pasta. Not unlike Gnocchi. "Don't call it Gnocchi. I'm working on Japanese cuisine, here". Morimoto asserted. He made sui-ton using red piment puree. The unique texture suggests a new wave of Japanese cuisine. Crispness of sliced pepper strangely matches well with the soup. Guest judge Kyoko Mano was simply impressed "What a great idea!!" Hosogi said "It is wonderful. But the soup was a bit on salty side..." But Michiba praised this dish, "Most Japanese soup is not this salty. They are, say, always somewhere in the middle. This saltiness is of something new". - Piment Sushi a la Morimoto This is classic. "Sushi is my origin as a chef. I had to try". Morimoto dipped sliced red piment in soy sauce as if they are sliced tuna, and made sushi out of it. He also boiled sliced brown piment to make it look like "kanpyo". He also made "gari (pickled ginger)" out of white piment. No, they really aren't real sushi. But "Piment has unique sweetness. It should match very well with vinegared rice. Trust me, it'll be good". Hosogi said "This tastes much better than it looks". Michiba: "I learned something new here again". - "Chakin" and Japanese Tart Chakin is a type of sushi that vinegared mixed rice is wrapped in a skin of thinly fried egg. But that's not the highlight of this dish. He was also going to make a dessert of piment jam roll, but the skin cracked and could not roll. Oh, no, it's all over??? But Morimoto recovered. Instead of the roll, he basically sandwiched the jam and called it a tart. Actually, it looked good that just by looking, you couldn't tell he wasn't planning to make this from the start. But there was no tasting on this dish. Iron French Hiroyuki Sakai Sakai was lot less modest in its pronouncement. "I want to be the king of chefs. And I'll show you that in the form of a compilation of my career". - Red Piment Mousse and Tomato Coulis This pink appetizer brings out the best of red piment. It looked pretty from here, but I have no idea how it might taste like. And there was no tasting shown. "Tomato Coulis" is just raw (or very slightly cooked), peeled, seeded, and chopped, fresh tomato. - Mille Feuille of Piment and Crab This colorful dish using red and yellow piment and crab meat, and made into layered dish, Sakai's specialty. Mano said of this dish, "It's colorful and pretty". Hosogi added that "You combined nature's best in such smooth manner to this dish, it's almost artistic". - Piment Royale with Pike Eel This is another of Sakai's specialty. Just a royale of piment is boring, but he added slices of pike eel (hamo). Asked why hamo, Sakai said "I wanted to show that I can do that hohe-kiri (bone cutting) too". Indeed, he did show his knivesman-ship. Hosogi praised this dish, "Behind the fish, piment comes out and it is so rich." Then she turned around and said "It's nice and warm for old man like you, isn't it, Mr. Michiba..." The old man just smiled. - Piment Ratatouille Ratatouille (pronounced rata-too-yeh) is a traditional Southern French vegetable dish. Sakai made this with piment as main ingredient. Aside from various colors of piments, lamb roasts and sauteed foie gras, etc. are put together to make this dish. It looked gorgeous. And what's Sakai's dish without foie gras? Michiba was impressed. "You know, the piment ate out the lamb in this dish!" - Piment Caramelise Caramelized piment is combined with not-so-sweet ice cream to make out this dessert dish. No tasting is shown on this dish, though. In the end, Michiba lamented that only one can win this battle. He complained that he drank too much wine while wondering how to cast his vote. It was that tough... but of course who can tell he wasn't having fun doing that??? This is Michiba, famous to enjoy drink or two while commentating. Judges: ------- Shinichiro Kurimoto -- Semi regular judge: a congressman by profession. Kyoko Mano -- Guest Judge: Actress Kinya Kitaoji -- Guest Judge: Actor Kazuko Hosogi -- Semi regular judge: A (sort of) academic by profession. more famous as a fortune teller. Special Guest Judge Rokusaburo Michiba -- Retired Iron French Chef. Arguably the finest tetsujin chef. Winner of several national / international tetsujin events. And Now the spoiler!!! Don't read this if you don't want to know. S P O I L E R ! ! ! It was the display of great cooking by both party, but only one can win. Iron French Sakai won! This lord Imagawa didn't let up to allow lord Oda to take over. Kurimoto Mano Kitaoji Hosogi Michhiba Total -------- -------- --------- ------ -------- ----- Morimoto 19 19 19 19 18 94 Sakai 20 20 20 20 20 100 The score was 5-0, but you can agree with me this was no easy feat for Sakai. He had to score the perfect score, with Michiba included as a judge. Morimoto, fresh from the perfect score two weeks ago, could not do it this time. I think both chefs did splendid jobs with such a difficult ingredient. Both showed bellpeppers indeed can be the star of excellent gourmet dishes. The sad fact again, is that this is finale for Morimoto. Too bad, for I personally liked Morimoto a lot. Only next to Chen. Of course, I cannot say the two in the final were not expected. Chen, the only original Iron Chef, and Sakai, the ever-popular French Iron Chef, deserved to be there. One can only hope the final is going to be just as good as the first round battle. Well then, till next week, Ciao. -ICR