Chapter 4 contains 60 minutes that will rock the Symphonian culinary world…let's get it on!
Chapter 4: Sake Confront
名譽 鉄人 }K{ 鉄人
道場 六三郎 VS ジーニアス・セイジ
"What a twist of events here in Kitchen Stadium Symphonia," Fukui narrated. "Honorary Iron Chef Michiba, claiming to be losing his spirit of cooking decides to challenge new Iron Chef Sage in an effort to rediscover what it means to have spirit drive your cuisine—a large crowd has gathered to watch this epic clash of the Symphonian culinary giants! Salmon is the theme, we are set, let's get it on!"
Kaga smiled and boomed forth the start signal: "ALLEZ CUISINE!"
The whole Stadium erupted in raucous applause as Michiba and Genis shook hands at kitchen level. Genis then promptly sprinted to the ingredient stand and grabbed one of the six large salmon resting there, handing it to his assistant.
"And Doc," Fukui exclaimed, craning his neck in Hattori's direction, "these fish are HUGE!"
"Oh, yes, these are probably the best salmon one can buy in Symphonia. Each one up there probably fetches about 30,000 gald a pop."
Sheena gasped, turning to Lloyd. "Did Hattori-san just say thirty THOUSAND?!"
Lloyd barely nodded, his eyes wide open upon hearing the steep price of each fish. "Y-y-yeah…" he managed, watching Genis fillet the expensive fish.
And I thought five thousand for groceries was excessive… Presea thought, recalling the time she and Genis trekked to Flanoir to restock the pantry. "Regal…" the pink-haired woodcutter tugged at the older man's sleeve, "have you ever heard of fish that expensive before?"
Regal shook his head. "I've heard of other ingredients that can get that expensive, but never fish…"
"And both Iron Chefs appear to be in trouble as they work on that fish," Fukui commented, seeing Genis struggle with the knife. Michiba, due to his age, was having an even tougher time, even stopping to catch his breath.
This is just like the old days again… the old man thought, recalling Iron Chef Ishinabe's story of the very first battle. His fellow Iron Chef's voice rang in his head: "I couldn't even skin the salmon! I wasn't expected to cook anything decent with those knives…"
Genis wiped the sweat from his brow as he stepped back from the cutting board. He looked at the knife in his hand in disbelief.
What the hell's up with these knives today? I swear somebody messed with these before the battle…
He raised the knife high above his head and swiftly brought it down on the tail of the fish he was working on. As he removed the knife from the cut, he tried to pry the tail off, but it wouldn't budge; the knife failed to cut all the way through.
And an impact like that should've separated it completely…
"Michiba-san!" Genis called.
"Hai!"
"Are your knives as dull as mine?"
"Yeah, I can't even cut into it!"
"Neither can I, they're not sharp at all! Hold on, I'll find something!" Genis called as he approached the Royal Box. "Yo, Lloyd! You think we can borrow your swords for the battle?"
Lloyd snapped out of his trance. "What?"
"Our. Knives. Suck." Genis showed Lloyd the knife he was using and pointed the thumb of his free hand down.
"But mine are too long!" Lloyd shouted back.
"We'll take anything at this point!"
Lloyd sighed and removed his sword belt, meeting Genis at the base of the Royal Box. "Go get 'em!" he said, handing the swords off and patting Genis on the back.
"Thanks!" Genis took one out of its sheath and laid it on his cutting board, then crossed over to Michiba's side of the kitchen.
"Michiba-san, here! It may be a little long but it's all we've got!" he called, handing Lloyd's other sword to him.
The old man eyed the long sword warily, unfamiliar with working with blades longer than a standard kitchen knife.
"Whoa, what's this? Iron Chef Sage bringing in swords?" Fukui inquired as Michiba picked up the blade, gingerly making an incision into the fish's belly. The skin parted easily, and Michiba split the fish open in no time.
"But for what?" Hattori asked.
"Fukui-san!"
"From the floor, Shinichiro Ohta, go!"
"Yes, these swords you see both chefs using are from Iron Chef Sage's friend Lloyd Irving, who's sitting in the Royal Box—I asked Iron Chef Sage about it and he told me, 'The Kitchen Stadium knives are too dull today, and I don't want to waste time over faulty equipment.' And as for why he gave one to Iron Chef Michiba, he simply said, 'I don't want to have an unfair advantage.'"
"Well, that's one way to do it," Fukui continued, "and the young Sage—Iron Chef Sage, rather—forced to improvise as usual, this time with faulty equipment in the Stadium. And now, let's meet today's guests for this sold-out clash of the titans…"
Colette glanced to the announcer's booth for the announcement of the special guests and saw Yuan and Tiga sitting between Hattori and Fukui.
"Onee-chan," she said, tapping Sheena's arm, "has Tiga judged here before?" She pointed to the announcer's booth.
Sheena looked in the direction of Colette's finger. Well, this may explain the recent "absences" he's been taking lately…and I thought it looked like he put on a little weight…well, whatever. Who knows, maybe he's learned a thing or two about cooking while he's been here.
"I…uh, I don't remember him saying anything about judging…though I think he's been here before…"
My gosh… Michiba gasped, this is much better! I don't even have to force it! He set small fillets of fish off to the side and barked at one of his assistants to get the rice cooker going.
Where's that blowtorch Morimoto-san always uses…? Michiba thought as he checked under the sink.
On the other side of the kitchen, Genis breathed a little easier now that he wasn't struggling with the terrible knife he dealt with earlier in the battle. Lloyd's sword cleaved straight through the tail Genis had been struggling to remove earlier.
Ha!
There was an audible gasp from the crowd as he removed the tail. Genis held it up in triumph.
"Nothing can get past Lloyd's swords!" he shouted as the crowd applauded and laughed.
"FIFTEEN MINUTES HAVE ELAPSED," came the time call.
"All right, fifteen minutes gone already," Fukui narrated, "and there really hasn't been much cooking happening on either side—I guess the knives really gave them a lot of trouble today in the early stages of the battle—"
"Yeah, I don't ever remember seeing chefs having this much trouble with our equipment, not even during the very first battle…" Hattori replied.
"Well, we all remember that first battle—Honorary Iron Chef French Ishinabe fought that one, that was a salmon battle as well, incidentally, and we saw him visibly struggle with the cutlery as well…"
"But did he take fifteen minutes?" Tiga asked.
"…Yeah, I don't think anyone's taken that long," Hattori replied, chuckling.
"But you notice something's up with both of them today? They don't seem as chipper as they usually do in the kitchen…" Yuan put in.
"Actually, now that you mention it, yeah, something does look the matter," Tiga replied. "Maybe the real meaning behind this battle is finally beginning to set in?"
"Well, neither one of them even bothered writing a menu before they started cooking—"
"Aha! That's what it is!" everyone but Hattori crooned in realization.
"—but it could very well be that they were struggling with the knives so much that, 15 minutes in, there's no more time for a menu."
"Well, you may be right about that one…And now, look at this! Iron Chef Michiba with the blowtorch! We've never seen him do that before," Fukui commented.
"Yeah, that's something we usually see Morimoto-san use. I wonder what he's going to do with this?" Yuan replied.
"Well, typically the fat of the fish bubbles to the top when you use a torch, so I'm guessing he's using this to better draw out the natural flavors of this fish. Now, what he does with the fish after this is a total guess to me," Hattori lectured.
"Fukui-san!"
"Go!"
"I asked Iron Chef Michiba if he had any particular reason for using the blowtorch and he just replied, 'No reason other than to make me feel young again! I mean, Morimoto-san uses it all the time and looks cool doing it, why can't I?'"
Lloyd chuckled at Ohta's latest report. "Anyone who uses a blowtorch," he said, leaning over to Sheena, "is a total badass in my book. I mean, Michiba-san looks like he could kill somebody with that thing!"
"Well, you know that presentation's important in any Iron Chef competition. You can't just win off taste alone!"
"Fukui-san!"
"Go!"
"Both chefs have their rice cookers going, and I'll bet we're going to see a sushi dish from both sides today!"
But isn't sushi a bit too…conventional for an Iron Chef battle? Presea thought as she stared intently at the scene on Genis's side of the kitchen. "But…Regal, what could they do to make sushi a bit more…unconventional?"
The blue-haired man narrowed his eyes, darting them from one side of the kitchen to the other. "It would take an awful lot of creativity to figure that one out. I suppose one of them could take the skin of the fish and substitute that for the seaweed in a sort of handroll, but you never know…"
"Fukui-san!"
"Yes, Ohta!"
"On Iron Chef Sage's side, salmon skin is being used to wrap the sushi rice with the raw salmon fillets—it looks to me like he'll be serving it as a handroll!"
Presea's eyes widened in a rare show of surprise. "You…Regal, how did you know that?"
Heh, I taught him that one…didn't ever think he was going to use it, though… "Just a hunch, Presea."
"And Fukui-san?"
"Yes?"
"Iron Chef Michiba is using the salmon he torched earlier in his sushi dish, and it appears that he is sticking a bamboo leaf over it!"
Now we just let that sit to absorb the bamboo aroma in peace… Michiba thought as Ohta finally left him alone.
As he continued working, though, the word he carelessly glossed over froze in his brain.
Peace…
Lo these several weeks before the battle, the old man had never felt at peace. He had been losing the very thing that motivated him to create good food, the thing that led him to success in the kitchen. Even his students at Mizuho's culinary academy picked up on the old man's dilemma—he had become more haggard by the day, lacking the usual punch that accompanied his lessons. He even remembered the time he had stumbled into a lesson twenty minutes late and drunk off the sake from his lunch break.
Well, at least the students were amused at that one…what the hell did I come up with that day? It was a salmon dish, wasn't it…?! The old man shot up in surprise from the bowl of sauce he was working on.
"Nagata!" he called to one of his assistants, nearly knocking over the bowl. "Get me a bottle of sake and pour it into a barrel! Drop a whole fish in it and let me handle the rest!"
"But we don't have another fish—" Nagata shrugged.
Michiba didn't even make eye contact with him as he pointed to the ingredient stand. The carpaccio was nearly complete, and he didn't want to break his focus. Nagata, a little intimidated by the old man's terse action, bolted up to the stand and hastily grabbed another fish.
The carpaccio was now complete; Michiba turned his thoughts to his brilliant idea as he plated several more servings.
So we'll soak it in sake for twenty, lightly batter and fry it, and garnish it with scallions, right? No, herbs are better…yeah, let's do that. Why didn't I think of that earlier?
~料理の鉄シンフォニア~
"TWENTY MINUTES TO GO," the disembodied voice of the clock called.
What?! 20 minutes? Crap, I'm not gonna make it!
Genis began to scramble. Twenty minutes left in the battle and he still had three unfinished dishes in front of him. Just concentrating on these three unfinished dishes made him incredibly hungry; he almost ate the one dish he had completed until one of his assistants called a boiling-over pot of soup to his attention.
First live ingredients, then faulty knives…I swear, if I ever battle here again, they should give me a vegetable theme and knives that actually work…
Michiba maintained a notion of calm as he checked on the whole fish soaking in the sake barrel.
Let's see…I think that's the only thing I have left to do?
He had a dish lineup of salmon sushi, the salmon carpaccio, a salmon teriyaki filet resting atop julienned vegetables, and sakeyaki, a take on the French-style takoyaki Sakai had made in his last battle against Genis. So indeed, the only thing he had left was the sake-soaked whole salmon. He had been busy with the batter with which to coat said salmon, and put the oil on the heat several minutes ago. The herbs were set aside and were ready to go.
"TEN MINUTES TO GO."
"OK, let's take it out!" he called. Nagata ran over and helped Michiba hoist the sake-drenched salmon onto the cutting board. The Iron Chef inhaled once the fish was flat on the surface.
Ahh…that's beautiful.
He smothered the batter all over the fish before dunking it into the hot oil—the crackling batter and the sizzling fish were music to the Iron Chef's ears.
I haven't felt this good about my cooking in such a long time…
The other side of the kitchen, on the other hand, was buzzing frantically with activity. Genis had only one dish left to finish, and less than five minutes in which to complete it.
Oh man, oh man, oh man…
"THREE MINUTES TO GO."
"C'mon Genis! You can do it!" Colette cheered from the Royal Box, drawing out applause from the other group members.
The young Iron Chef frantically drizzled the teriyaki sauce over the baked salmon and dashed to the baskets to look for potential garnishes.
"ONE MINUTE TO GO."
OK…teriyaki…sweet…salmon…oily and fatty…snow crab…creamy…what balances them all out?!
"THIRTY SECONDS TO GO."
Something with kick! Sharp herb, perhaps…aha! Rosemary, perfect!
He grabbed a handful of rosemary and sprinted back to the plating area, trying hard not to drop any of the herb as he sprinkled it all over the dish.
"FIFTEEN SECONDS TO GO."
Whew! That's it…one, two, three, four dishes again…
"TEN SECONDS TO GO."
Michiba, on the other side, sipped some sake as he looked over his dishes one more time.
"FIVE SECONDS."
Oh no! Genis thought, casting his eyes on his salmon katsuobushi. I forgot—
"THREE."
"TWO."
"ONE."
"And that's it! The cooking's done, the Salmon Battle is OVAH!"
—the noodles.
Yikes! Does Genis's omission cost him the match? Has Michiba finally regained a sense of direction in his cooking? Tasting and judgment when Iron Chef Symphonia returns!
