Directory:Iron Chef/Episode 32 - Cod Roe (2nd Battle)

((Roe is the fully ripe egg masses of fish and certain marine animals, such as sea urchin, shrimp and scallop. As a seafood it is used both as a cooked ingredient in many dishes and as a raw ingredient.))

"Tell me what you eat, and I'll tell you what you are" Brillat-Savarin"

Battle Between:

Iron Chef Japanese (2nd) Komei Nakamura versus Katsuko Nanao

Ah, one of the rare female challengers to enter Kitchen Stadium here, a housewife who also is the owner of a resturaunt in Azabu-juban, Tokyo, called Nanao.

Highlights:

Married at age 21, became a full time homemaker

12 years later, became frustrated with being a homemaker and left, with one suitcase and some cash.

She became a stylist for a Japanese Pop group in the mid-1970's called "The Candies"

1980-85, ran a coffee shop with a friend

1985 - Opened Her own resturaunt (because you know, every moment in her career led up to this)

The voice over says that "Nanao shows no pride in technique or excellence, but instead one finds quality, modesty and affection in her home style dishes."

(I'm beginning to believe this means "We had need of a last minute replacement, and we really wanted to give the Iron Chef an easy victory")

So, I'm not quite sure how this turns out. I expect a rout, but who knows?

Here we go with the opening, Don't bite the pepper, Chairman.. don't do it.. Aw he did it, and all of a sudden there's 120 sous-chefs in kitchen stadium. (Insert triumphal music here.)

Damn. Chairman Kaga is almost looking completely non-flamboyant today.

He brings out the challenger, and it's time to summon the Iron Chefs

(please note: They go through the motion of the challenger selecting an Iron Chef for the battle, and show all three Iron Chefs, but only the Iron Chef who will be battling is actually in Kitchen Stadium (it's pre-determined).

Time to unveil the secret ingredient:

Today's theme ingredient: 250 Cod Roe from Hokkaido, Japan. They normally go for about $8 per, so they spent $2,000 on the main ingredient alone (and the chefs can request certain items be stocked in their pantry before the battle)

Allez Cuisine!

Today's commentators, joining "Doc" Yukio Hattori and Fuyuki-san in the commentators booth, baseball commentator, Takehiko Bessho, and an actress, Kazuko Katoh (yes, her voice doesn't give me much hope for any meaningful commentary in this battle, I think we have our first BDJ Judge )

The Iron Chef is not too impressed with the theme ingredient, he gets asked whether he uses it at his restaurant. He basically raises his nose and says "No way".. but he does like it at home cured with red chilli.

I'll not post much of the battle, there's so much going on, besides, the end result is available

Dishes:

Challenger offers five dishes:

Grilled Cod Roe Salad: (made with a dressing made with chinese rice wine and horse radish). Looks kinda like the typical salad you'd find in a fancy resturaunt. High on different iteams, but very small, maybe two-three bites tops.

Cod Roe & Vegetable Soup: Made with, believe it or not, milk (to mask the overwhelming aroma of the salt-cured Cod Roe). Comes with chopped Mint leaves on the side to provide a finishing refreshing touch.

Fried Cod Roe: cheese and code roe wrapped in chiso leaves before being fried, a very simple dish.

Cod and Cod Roe Grilled in Mayonnaise: I'm not sure how to describe it, but it's the cod roe mixed with a diced cod fillet, with sesame seeds as well as honeywart on the side.

Finally, Steamed Cod Rice: bamboo shoots and benito shavings with the Cod Rice on top of glutineous rice.

My judgement: Well, to say the least, I'm not familiar with the theme ingredient, but I'm not sure the dishes are anything spectacular. They all seem very plain, and not sophisticated. Well, again, this is a home-style chef, who's probably more used to making plain, straight forward dishes then the high risk/high reward style of dishes in Iron Chef.

Iron Chef Nakamura also has five dishes:

"Californian Ruby" a chilled appetizer, combining avocado and cod roe

Smoked Cod Roe in a Bamboo Leaf. He fashioned his own smoker out of a metal container and apple wood chips inside. Very interesting to watch this move (he apparently didn't bring his own smoker, and had to improvise.

Cod Roe Dumpling in Soup. Adds Grated Yam and Abalone. I think that's a rather interesting combinations of flavors, from the Yam, to the seafood, to the salt cured Cod Roe in the soup.

Baby Sweetfish stuffed with cod roe: Yes, these are EXTREMELY tiny fish, grilled, and filled with a cod roe mixture. Very haute cuisine (which also means very very small)

Cod Roe and Yam on Rice. Kinda like the challenger's dish. Adds lobster meat as a base.

Off we go to judging:

Judges: Shinichiro Kurimoto (former House of Representatives member in Japan), actress Kazuko Katoh, baseball commentator Takehiko Bessho, and Culinary critic Asako Kishi.

(Just as an aside before I get going with the judging, Asako Kishi is generally known as the "East German" judge when it comes to Iron Chef, because she is not only the Simon Cowell of judges, not hesitating to penalize chefs for substandard dishes, but because in general, the feeling is that the Iron Chef would have to serve fried poop on a plate for her to not favor the Iron Chef. If Kishi ever votes for a challenger, you know the challenger won clearly)

First up in the judging, is the challenger Katsuko Nanao

First dish (the cod roe salad) is met lukewarm by the judges, who generally think its a bit too salty.

Ooof! The 2nd dish (the milk soup) gets savaged by the two judges who reviewed it, and neither of them were Kishi. (if this was an airplane, I'd be shouting Mayday, Mayday at this point)

Third dish: (the cod and code roe grilled in Mayonnaise) they like the fish part of it, but not the cod roe. Since the cod roe is the theme ingredient... The good thing is Kishi likes the dish, so it's not a complete disaster.

Fourth Dish: The Steamed Cod Rice. Again, they try to lessen the blow by saying "I know this is not a common item, but.." ooof. This is painful to watch. Way too salty.

They didn't even show the Fried Cod Roe. That must really say something when they basically dimissed the other four. Can we declare this one a forfeit already?

Iron Chef's turn.

First dish shown is the Cod Roe smoked in the bamboo leaf. They praise the Iron Chef for harmonizing and lessening the saltiness of the cod roe by smoking and mixing eggs in with it.

Next up is the soup. Gets judged a bit too mild and a little too watery. Gets judged too elegant

the Baby sweetfish is next. Gets the best reaction from the judges. Gets full praises.

The Rice is praised as well, for harmonizing many different ingredients

They skip the fifth dish as well.

The BDJ judge says "Can you please come and cook for us every day". If this was wrestling, I'd fully expect the swerve at this point and for the female chef to win.. but it's time to go for judgement..

So who takes it, whose cuisine reigns supreme?

Well, if you made it all the way to the end, the result should be obvious...

The winner is... Iron Chef Komei Nakamura!

Let's go to the scoring (20 point system)

Kurimoto 18-14 Iron Chef Katoh 19-17 Iron Chef Bessho 18-14 Iron Chef Kishi 19-17 Iron Chef

(4-0 Judges 74-62, Score)

The challenger scored VERY poorly, to not even get 15-16 from two judges, is not usual. This was the Iron Chef version of a squash match, basically.