Food Wars volume 9 - Yuto Tsukuda and Shun Saeki

 Awright, time to pick up Food Wars again, as I now obtained a few volumes to continue reading this excellent series about cooking.

 

Which intrests me by topic alone already, and I haven't regretted reading any of the previous volumes either. 

And it begins with the conclusion of Soma's quarter final cook-off versus Alice Nogiri.  When it turns out he used... convenience story candy in his recipy, the judges are totally flabbergasted.  Alice is corrected on her faulty assumptions of a bento box by the dean, her own grandfather, as she is soundly defeated by Soma.  In the meantime, Megumi is preparing for her own quarter final, in which she will face Ryo Kurokiba, Alice's assistant, in a ramen themed challenge.

 

As Megumi reflects on her practice dishes, using ingredients from her home village.  But Alice confides in her that her opponent also knows the seaside well, as she met him years ago when he was still a young bloke and already in charge of a diner for dockworkers.  He was a real prick back in those days, but of exceptional skill, seeing the kitchen as a battlefield.

 

He serves a ramen dish inspired on a french fish soup, impressing the judges, while Megumi brings a crystal clear broth made of scallops and vegetables from the Aizu area in Japan.  After a tense duel, the dean selects Ryu as the winner, but Megumi bows out of the contest under applause from the crowd.  The dean admits to himself that this class might just be diamond generation, as the survivors so far prepare for their cook offs.

 

Soma meets the last qualifier, Subaru Mimasaka.  While he looks like a big, rough biker, he is actually a really relaxed guy.  While the third quarter final is based around hamburgers, putting Hayama against Hisako Arato, the spice master against the medicinal chief, Soma, Aldini and Megumi get to watch the contest in Subaru's waiting room, witnessing how Hisako makes a burger from turtle meat.

 

But what will Hayama put up against her dish?  That is something to look forward to in volume 10 of this highly enjoyable manga series...

Food Wars volume 7 - Yuto Tsukuda and Shun Saeki

 The fall contest is in full swing as we start the next volume in this series I am really liking.

And that means the crop of the crop of students cooks off against each other, with only 4 in each of the two brackets advancing after a hard scrutiny by the judges.

Their assignement, to make a special curry dish, is harder then it looks though.  In hall B, where Megumi competes, the jury awards points sparsely.  But from Edina's aid to a girl nicknamed the Cauldron Witch, strong dishes are put forward, setting the bar highly.

In Soma's hall in the meantime, the judging is even harsher.  So when Alice's aide scores a 93, he knows the bar is set very highly.  Mito also scores herself on the board for now, but some high hitters still have to present their dish.

The contest shifts back to the B hall, where apparently boring Megumi wows the judges with a dish made from monkfish and vegetables from her small hometown, advancing her as she comes in fourth in her bracket and knocking out some big names like Chinese cuisine mistress Hoyo, and the younger of the Aldini brothers in the process.

So now let's get on towards volume 8 and see if Soma can pull it off in his bracket as well...

Food Wars volume 6 - Yuto Tsukuda and Shun Saeki

 It's back to cooking with Soma and his friends from the Polaris dormitory!

And with the school festival approaching and it's competition, the tension is rising amongst the students.

Erina still has serious issues with Soma being in the selection for the competition, but her niece sees it as the perfect moment to defeat both her and Soma before the world to see.  But he is not without allies, as not only did his dormitory friends also got in the selection, he also receives backing from the student council.

While he learns that the council of the future will in all probability come from the first years that win at the event, his father returns and arrives at the Polaris dorm house.  Not only was his father a student at the school and a member of Polaris, it turns out he was even the Second Chair on the student council.

His father cooks a delicious feast for all in the dormhouse, but the next morning he wakes Soma early.  Because it wouldn't be a father / son reunion without a cooking contest, so he can see how much his son has already progressed at school in his cooking skills.  Soma is soundly beaten by his dad, for the 490th time in a row now since he started challenging his dad.

The assignement for the fall contest comes in, the dish being "curry dishes" so Soma and Tadokoro go look for advice.  This leads them to second year teacher and former dormitory collegue of his dad, but she punches him down as she doesn't want anything to do that reminds her of Soma's dad.  Her assistant shows them what can be done with fresh herbs in the kitchen.

 

Practicing all summer break, the curtain rises as the Fall contest is about to begin. When the dean of the institute explains the rules of the challenges, they all realise only 4 of each block will move on to the finals.  As the top students unleash all their skills to create exquisite dishes, Soma... is taking a nap.

So how will this play out?  I guess I'll have to wait for volume 7 to find out.

Food Wars volume 5 - Yuto Tsukuda and Shun Saeki

 So we left off with Soma about to fail the 200 servings test, so will he manage to pull through.

Because it seems his souffle eggs have collapsed, as he didn`t take into account the fact a buffet is not served right to the platter.

As he refocusses to give it another shot in the remaining 30 minutes, Erina and another girl whom is seemingly her rival grab all the customers.  But Soma suddenly starts a live cooking show, taking the attention of the attendees and smashes through to the requirements with a few seconds left.

The other girl introduces herself as Alice, the cousin of Erina and bound on becoming the top chef of the institute using scientific methods to cooking.  But the camp ends with a dinner party, and they return back to their dorm, their group still complete and the chefs already scouting out the students.  Soma and Erina both miss the bus though, so have to share a car back to the institute.

A while later, a long weekend is upon them and Soma goes back to open the family restaurant for a day.  He learns that a fried chicken concern has opened in the station, resulting in the local street market starting to dwindle.  He decides to help out together with a former high school friend, Kurase (who has a crush on him) and calls in the aid of Ikumi to better the receipe of fried chicken.

Banding together the various stores in the street market, they produce a better product, slashing the profits of the fired chicken chain store.  But in doing so, he finds out later at school, he made an enemy of the cooking consultant known as The Alchemist and also the 9th Seat on the institute's council of ten.

So this was a fun volume for sure, Noshi even caught me sniggering during the reading.  Now to get some more volumes of this series in the future!

Food Wars volume 4 - Yuto Tsukuda and Shun Saeki

 Megumi is about to expelled, but Soma doesn`t stand for it, and has challenged one of the instructor's at camp to a cook off duel.

But can they stand up to such a culinary monster?

Chef Shinomiya refuses the duel to negate the expellation, but his fellow chef Dojima interferes.  He makes sure the challenge does take place, but with the exception that Megumi and not Soma has to be the chef, Soma only allowed to help her as a sous-chef.

But his experience and skill make sure that everything gets done right on time, allowing Megumi to make a truly delicious dish, and impressing the other judges as he goes.  But it isn`t enough and they loose the challenge, facing exclusion.  Chef Dojima intervenes, putting the harsh truth to Shinomiya, that now that he has reached the top, he is stagnating.  He tastes Megumi's dish, and starts crying as it remember him of his childhood, and putting his vote to her dish, causing the expulsion to be revoked as the duel ends on a tie.

Both saved, Soma never the less curses the fact he actually lost to an experienced chef.  But no time to stress, as their next assignment depraves them of sleep as they need to design a breakfast worthy of the institute's elite hotel.  But as Agiri, Megumi and others pass both the taste and the servings tests, it seems Soma is failing as he is nowhere near the required 200 servings to pass and time is running out...

Okay, now that is a cliffhanger, time to move to the next volume to see if he gets out of this pickle!

Food Wars volume 3 - Yuto Tsukuda and Shun Saeki

 The cooking adventures of Soma continue in this third volume of the series.

And now, it is time for school camp, where a lot of students are expected to fall by the road.

Arriving at a luxurious mountain resort, Soma and his Polaris dorm friends learn that the courses will be judged by some of the top chefs in Japan, all graduates of the institute.  He is paired with Megumi again during the first test, where he is challenged by a pair of italian brothers who are just like him: working in the family's trattoria ever since they where young children.  With the reputation of their family restaurants on the line, they face off while trying to obtain passing grades.

Both creating gorgeous dishes, the judge declares the battle a draw, but back in the hotel they are faced with the gruesome challenge of creating 50 servings within an hour to feed some other clubs present.  One of the chefs wants to expel Megumi, but Soma steps in argueing her cause.  And this results in Soma actually challenging the chef to an official duel!

As a bonus, the book also contains Shun Saeki's debut short story, Your and My Romance Counseling, about a chance encounter flowering into a budding romance.

Now to start volume four and find out how that duel is going to go down!

Food Wars volume 2 - Yuto Tsukuda and Shun Saeki

 Back for more of this series which, I must say, enjoyed discovering.

Because as I love to cook myself, this is a fun series with a theme that touches my intrest after all, and it is darn funny to boot.

Soma is looking for his dorm, the Polaris Dormitory, which even to people on campus is seemingly unknown.  When he finally arrives, he manages to convince the caretaker of his skills by cooking a meal from scraps, and gain entrance to it as such.

In there, he meets the fellow residents, all eccentrics as that seems to be the ones still remaining in the dorms at the campus, as well as his new-made friend Megumi.  They throw him a welcome party, and he finds out the morning after one of his fellow residents is actually one of the Council of Ten members.  He gets challenged by him to a cook-off, and they draw.  He explains to Soma how the whole challenge system works and it isn`t that easy to get a battle to enter the Council of Ten.

Later, when he is paying a visit to the Bowl Society, he steps in for the don of the club to take on Ikumi Mito, the meat master.  And drop dead babe.  She is one of Erina's lackeys, who wants to bring the club down.  If Soma loses, the club ends and he is expelled, but if he wins, she must join the society as a full time member instead.

Taking the duel with her favorite ingredient, meat, he baffles the judges though, and in doing so saves the club and makes Ikumi join it.  As he is learning more about the garden in the Polaris dormitory, a phamplet arrives to tell them about a mountain trip cooking camp, where in previous years many students where weeded out from the masses.  But being the optimist he is, he is certain all the people in the dorm, including himself and Megumi, will pull through.

Okay, I`m liking this series.  And I think it is pretty awesome that all the recipies are in the books as well of the dishes Soma (and his friends) are making, I really am going to give a hand at some of those in the future!

Oh, and...

Food Wars volume 1 - Yuto Tsukuda and Shun Saeki

 Okay, so Food Wars has a loyal following I read, but to be honest, never have I gotten round to either manga nor anime.

So when I snatched a deal on Facebook with the first 5 volumes in it, I was more then willing to give it a try.

The story begins with Soma Yukihira facing off against his father, a chef in a small restaurant, in a cooking contest... and losing for the 489th time.  He really is focussed on beating his dad one day in culinary skills, but loan sharks are after their restaurant in order to build large appartement blocks there instead.

When his dad decides to close the restaurant for three years to go work in New York, Soma is send to the best culinary school in Japan, where only 10% of the students manage to graduate.  To be allowed in, he must pass the taste test by a girl called Erina, who has "the divine tongue" as a superb taste tester, and her causing the other entrants to run away before even starting to cook.

He takes the exam, but she unfairly fails him due to her seeing him as a commoner.  However, he is accepted in the school none the less, as her grandfather, who is the dean of the school, secretly tasted the dish afterwards and overrules her.  For their first lesson, he is teamed with a bottom rank grade girl, Megumi.  Their dish is sabotaged by other students as he insulted them during his speech at the entrance ceremony, but drawing on his yearlong experience working in a restaurant he pulls them through with flying colours.  Because Soma has 12 years of actual experience cooking versus the often only 3 years of schooling of the other students.

The manga contains two more special side stories as well about how he beat Erina's secretary in a challenge, and it actually has the recipy in it for the dish he cooked for Erika.  I guess I`m actually one day am going to give that dish a try honestly.

This was a welcome discovery of a series, and one I will be persuing for certain over the coming months and years as a result, so you'll be seeing volumes of this series pop up in my haul reports now and then!

Culinary Tip: Refill (Antwerpen)

Yesterday, the GF and I celebrated our anniversary with a dinner date in the Refill, located on the Kleine Koraalberg in Antwerp.

This new restaurant is run by Jo and Fred, two friends of ours who owned the Reload before this.

But now they are located in a historical building in the centre of Antwerp, while still keeping their excellent menu and great prizes!

The bottom floor of the building is the bar, which has a small menu for the snackers under us, and currently they have this to serve:

Now, the first floor is the restaurant, and the menu will change a little every two months.  This is to follow the seasons, while of course regulars like the Vol-au-Vent and steak will remain.

I had the camenbert as a starter and the "parelhoen" as the main course this time.

I did just settle for a Bailey's coffee (with fresh cream, not the spraycan stuff) instead of a dessert though, I`m still recuperating from France you see ;-)

So if you are in Antwerp and want some good, strong food, be sure to go to Refill, and give Jo and Fred my regards ;-)

Koken Eten: Greek Chicken

It has been a while since I did one of these, but today I wanted to try something different and actually record it...

So we get Chicken in a greek fashion.  This is a pasta dish with drumsticks, not to hard to prepare, though I wouldn`t advice it for the kitchen novice.

The main components of this dish are chicken drumsticks, that greek pasta kiri... krii... the other one then orzo, that looks like large rice, cherry tomatoes and young spinache.

The first thing you have to do is to wash the spinache in salt water.  While the spinach is washing, you can prepare an onion and 3 cloves of garlic.  Just cut them in small pieces and toss them together.

Sparkle the chicken royaly with salt, pepper and oregano.  Pour some oil in a pan (I used garlic flavored oil today, no particular reason).

In the meantime, boil about half a liter of chicken broth.  Just water and a brothcube is sufficiant, it`ll serve to boil the dish in later on.

Lightly colour the chicken in the pan, then take the drumsticks out but keep the bake in the pan.  Melt a piece of butter in the pan and make losing the baking rests.  Pour the onions and garlic into it now, then when those are fruited add the rice.

This needs to be stirred for a few minutes, then pour in the broth.  Cut your cherry tomatoes in half in the meantime, and once the broth starts lightly boiling, add the chicken drums again.

Cover this with the spinach and the tomatoes, and leave it on the fire for about 15 to 20 minutes until the tomatoes are warm and the spinach retracts a bit.

Serve on a platter and all done.

Okay, now as you can see on the picture of everything in the pot, that is exactly why it isn`t for complete novices.  While there is nothing difficult about the preparation in essence, due to the fact the whole pan is covered in vegetables you can`t quickly check on the pasta and chicken if they are ready.  This comes down to gut feeling and experience to get it right I`m afraid...

The Haul Report #9

Hohoho, I hope you all have been good this year, and Santa has filled your stockings with everything your heart desires.  He surely did here...

Instead of putting it all a day later, this week I`m moving both the Haul and the Inspirational a day forward, as I`m out on a Christmas trip to Canterbury with my mother monday.

Now, the first things I got is for `that other thing I like to do`, namely cooking.  I managed to obtain two Sekitobei knives, japanese cutting knives.  Now, the way you actually cut with these is different from our european knives, think of it like the everlasting sword vs katana discussion on which is better.  While we `stab and pull`, you notice the curvature of these knives is different, and it`s main cutting area is the rounded side near the handle, causing you to `place and push` more in style.

I also got a second AT-DP polybag this week thanks to a mate.

I needed to visit the Wijnegem Shopping Centre earlier this week for a calendar, and I dropped by and picked up a Flash Speeder as well, yielding me my second `red arm C-3PO and the chirstmas tree ornament as well.

But then it was christmas eve.  First of all, I got a fantastic present from the in-laws, but I prefer not to picture it for private reasons.  I did get some other cool things as well that I can share though.

The GF got me this level pack for Lego Dimensions, the Back to the Future set so that I now have all the level packs present that have been released so far.

And from my brother and sister in-law I got a nice smelling shower gel, as well as this to funny Darth Vader booklet.  I had the Darth Vader and Son calendar last year and just love the drawing style of these.

Yesterday, it was off to my side of the family, where I hauled a stack of Lego sets from mum and dad, while the Smurf got me Benny for Lego Dimensions :-)  The Chima and Friends sets are also a sort of a milestone, it`s the first time ever my mother got me something I didn`t know about from Lego :-)

So that was a great set of christmassy gifts, so indeed I must have been a good boy as Santa didn`t pass me buy.

Koken Eten: Hunter`s Dish

Today, I made something simple you can easily do with your kids.  Well, except that my Santa`s Little Helper disappears whenever potatoes need to be freed of their skin, but heck.

Another thing this is good for is to hide `not their favorite` vegetable in it.  While this recipy uses carrots (always popular) and selery (not so much), you can exchange that for collyflower and brocolli, or leek and mushrooms for example.

The main ingredients are simple as hell: minced meat (I use a mix of pork and veal), about double that amount of potatoes, carrots and selery.  I don`t `do` exact weights, but try to make the total of about 1/4th meat, 1/4th veggies and half of it potatoes for the mash.

The only other things you will need are butter, milk, pepper, salt and nutmeg.  You also need a single onion, but since it`s winter and the local winter onions aren`t that great, I used some sjalots instead.  Can`t be easier.

While the potatoes are peeled and cooking to be made into a simple mash, fruit the vegetables in a different pot until they are glazed over.  Use some butter for this, with some salt and pepper, and do this on a medium fire.

When the taters are cooked, add a cube of butter, a good pour of milk, and the pepper, salt and nutmeg to one`s taste.  Mash this all together and then put aside for a moment.

The vegetables are glazed by now, and put in the minced meat and some more butter to bake them `rhul`, aka when they start turning a grayish brown.  Just don`t bake them to hard, or it will become to dry afterwards.

When the meat is ready, butter in a large oven dish and pour the vegetable and meat mix in it.  Cover this up with the potato mash.

Put it in the oven for half an hour, and you`re all done.

Labour rating: 0 - as I said, this can be easily done with children, just remain at their side so they don`t chop of their fingers or burn their hands.

GF and Smurf Appreciation rating: 9 - I was a bit amazed by such high points, as it`s dead simple and nothing spectacular, but on these rainy days it apparently is a winner.