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Famous Yūto Tsukuda Quotes

“With standard pot stickers, the filling is enclosed in a wheat-dough wrapper. But with these, the filling is stuffed into a chicken wing. "Stuffed chicken wings. You can call 'em chicken-wing pot stickers too. So you made some stuffed Satsuma Jidori chicken-wing pot stickers, eh, Yukihira?" "You got it! First, you remove the two long bones inside the wing... Then you stuff the filling in the cavity they leave behind and fry 'em up! That's the basics of a stuffed chicken wing." "Mmm! I can smell their savory aroma from here. What's in the filling?" "Well, there're the basics, like ground pork, chives and cabbage. I added some diced pork jowl too. Oh! And shiitake mushrooms. That's the important part. See, chicken meat has inosinic acid in it, and shiitake mushrooms have guanylic acid. Both of those are umami components. Together, they magnify each other, giving the dish a richer flavor.”

Souma YukihiraFillingsUmamiChicken WingsFood ScienceAcidsPot StickersShiitake Mushrooms
Book:食戟のソーマ 17 [Shokugeki no Souma 17]
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“This broth! How can it be this rich and mellow?! It's just creamy enough to go perfectly with the noodles too! And this savory flavor! It's so deep and expansive!" "I grated some potato and added it to the stock. That's what's giving the broth its creaminess. Believe it or not, the potato is another vegetable that contains the umami compound glutamic acid. That compound seeped out into the broth, giving it it's rich and savory flavor. Plus, I only grated the potato roughly, so there are still little beads of potato in the broth, giving the texture some interesting highlights." "But what about this topping? What is it?! Hnngh! I knew it! Imo-Mochi Potato Cakes! They're soft and chewy on the inside and crisp and crunchy on the outside!" Imo-Mochi Potato Cakes are another Hokkaido specialty. Made with potatoes and potato starch, they're a popular treat with tourists. The heavy, chewy potato cakes soaked in the creamy broth are a pleasing textural contrast... ... to the light and sleek udon noodles while also giving the dish an extra sense of fullness and satisfaction! "Unbelievable. It's almost as if this one dish... ... contains all the expressions of a potato possible in cooking!" "Exactly! Y'see, this dish---" "This dish uses all facets of the Irish Cobbler Potato, accenting its starch, its unique texture and its umami goodness. In fact, it can be considered the ultimate in potato-noodle dishes!”

CakePotatoesNoodlesSouma YukihiraSavoryUmamiTakumi AldiniCompoundUdon
Book:食戟のソーマ 21 [Shokugeki no Souma 21]
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“The outer wall of meat was already extravagantly delicious... ... but now it's as though a mellow yet aromatic geyser of savory umami flavor has suddenly burst through! Ah! There, between the layers of meat! Some sort of thick juice is seeping out!" "Yep! I've boiled down some meat stock and seasonings to make an extra-thick Jellied Consommé! Right before serving, I used a special cooking injector to inject it into various spots in the meat layer. As you eat, you stumble across it unexpectedly, giving the dish sudden, intriguing changes of flavor!”

MeatJellySouma YukihiraCavemanInjectorInterchanging
Book:食戟のソーマ 30 [Shokugeki no Souma 30]
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“The mellow cheese melds together seamlessly with the chicken in the pâté... And by serving it warm instead of chilled, far from ruining the firmness of the meat, the moistness of the chicken has instead come alive! Not only that, the flavor of the porcini sauce is hardly overwhelmed. In fact, it now has a complex and intriguing taste to it! This is still a rough idea with plenty of room for improvement, but the promise is there. By deliberately matching powerful taste with powerful taste... ... they are actually magnifying each other!" "Well? Whaddaya think, Erina-chi? Is it good? Hm? Hm?" "Nope, the greasiness of the pork came out too strong. It's made the whole thing taste too heavy." "Yeah, but I'd still like to retain the pork's richness somehow!" "Are you all experimenting with another dish? Oh! Both chicken and pork? That combination won't do at all. You can't simply add more and more things, you know. Remember, less is more." "Hang on. How about we add some kind of tartness to it? Isn't there something that can keep both the chicken's umami and the pork's richness while zapping the greasiness of it all?”

Food For ThoughtCheeseMushroomsPorkChickenSouma YukihiraErina NakiriExperimentingTaste Test
Book:食戟のソーマ 18 [Shokugeki no Souma 18]
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“Chestnuts have always been an ingredient that goes well with gamy meats. And in French cuisine, chestnuts are often seen in combination with venison. But the mildly sweet flavor and tender texture of these sweet chestnuts makes them melt in the mouth! That flavor combined with the smoky aroma of the charcoal grilling, makes the juicy meatiness of the venison stand out in stark contrast! This flavor isn't something that could be created with regular chestnuts. It's a deliciousness made possible precisely because he chose to use sweet chestnuts! "He minced some of them and added them to the sauce as well! Doing that spread their mild sweetness throughout the whole dish!" Soma's Chestnut Sauce Starting with a base of Fond de Veau (a brown stock usually made with veal), he added a cinnamon stick, orange zest and minced sweet chestnuts and then set the sauce to simmer. "Wait a minute. How odd! Charcoal grilling usually adds a unique and very distinctly bitter taste to ingredients. A taste that is decidedly outside the canon of French flavors! Yet this dish has taken that bitter taste and somehow made it fit seamlessly! Is there some secret to it?!" "That would be the coffee." "What?!" "Coffee?" "Yep! You guessed it! That's the Divine Tongue for you. One of the things I learned at Master Shinomiya's restaurant is that cacao goes really well with game meats. I've never used cacao much, though, to be honest... So instead I grabbed some instant coffee! The bitterness of coffee is similar enough to pure cacao that it paired up nicely with both the charcoal grilling and the gamy venison... ... resulting in a deeply rich and astringent flavor that's perfect for a truly French sauce. I added both coffee and chestnuts as secret ingredients to my sauce! This is a Yukihira Original and a brand-new French dish. I call it... ... Charcoal-Grilled Venison Thigh with Chestnut Sauce." In formal Japanese cooking bowl dishes, such as soups and rice bowls, are constructed from four elements: the main ingredient, the supporting ingredients, the stock and the accents. Similarly, the French dishes are constructed from three different parts balanced in harmony: the main ingredient, the sauce and the garnishes. But this dish... this is eccentric and novel and entirely unconventional while still remaining undeniably French! It's almost as if it's a nugget of flavor found only by cracking and peeling away the shell of common sense...”

CoffeeSauceSeasoningsCharcoalSouma YukihiraChestnutsGrillingVenisonSweet And Bitterness
Book:食戟のソーマ 20 [Shokugeki no Souma 20]
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