As the crowd filed into the arena, the excitement and tension could be felt as they eagerly anticipated the final match of the regimental food war. Before the respective teams entered the arena through the runway, Urara did her part to get the crowd fired up as was one of her primary jobs as emcee. Soon, both teams entered the arena – Central's team to a rousing ovation, and the rebels to a shower of boos. The top three seats, representing Central, all had looks of confidence on their faces, while the three rebels had serious looks of determination on theirs.
Before the match began, Urara gave a quick interview, asking both teams what the lineups would look like. Neither team's answer was a real surprise to the crowd, as Central would have Rindo make the appetizer, Eishi with the entrée, and Momo finish things off with the dessert. Meanwhile, the rebels announced their lineup of Soma cooking the appetizer, Erina making the entrée, and Daniel on dessert duty. As the interviews finished, the judges began to walk in with Azami, Decora, Courage, and Anne making their way to their seats at the table, with Azami taking his seat towards the middle of the table. Urara then reminded the crowd of the theme for the final match – a gourmet three course meal. In addition, she explained that each team would be presenting each course to be judged against each other. This meant that each team would serve their appetizer at about the same time to be judged, followed by each team's entrée, and finally each team's dessert. The gong then sounded, and the cooking time began.
As everyone gathered their ingredients from the commissary, the rebels made sure to keep a calm look amongst themselves, as they needed to focus on the task at hand. Specifically, while each of them was making their own dish, as outlined by Daniel (and tweaked as necessary by each of them), Erina would be crucial here, as her God Tongue would help to make sure that everything was as correct and balanced as possible – something that would be necessary to beat the top three seats. Once they had gotten all of the ingredients they would need, they made their way back to the arena to start cooking.
As Soma got started, began to chop up a bunch of leeks and put most of them into a pan with butter to soften and caramelize them, setting aside some of the chopped leeks for later. He then began to put potatoes and cauliflower into a boiling pot of cream to get them cooked through. Once he did that, he pureed the vegetables and cream together with some vegetable stock and a rue he had made to create a soup. He then seasoned the soup as instructed by Erina. Setting that aside, he checked on the leeks cooking in the pan, which were about done. He then got to work on some prawns, and placed a small piece of guanciale into each prawn after cutting a small slit, before wrapping each prawn in a thinly sliced piece of potato. Once he secured the wrapped prawns, he then fried them, ensuring that the prawns were cooked perfectly while the potato wrapping was crispy and golden brown. He then took the remaining uncooked leeks and fried them up, as well.
Before Soma was ready with the appetizer, Rindo had finished her dish first and was the first appetizer to be presented to the judges. Her dish was a mushroom tart of sorts, which was made with two layers of mille-feuille dough. In between the dough layers, there was a layer of duxelles consisting of mushrooms, shallots, garlic, and chestnuts. On top, she placed a row of confit shitake mushrooms, which was garnished with some thin truffle slices. In addition, Rindo once again showed off her knowledge of rare and exotic ingredients by adding formic acid from the extract of young black ants to the duxelles, which enhanced and harmonized the flavors of the mille-feuille crust with the rest of the dish. Her use of the formic acid was just right, as the judges marveled at the deft hand she had displayed with not only the rare ingredient, but also the dish in its entirety.
Now it was Soma's turn to present, and as he placed the dishes in front of the judges, they were a bit confused at first (the girls were, anyway, while Azami had an unimpressed look on his face). The initial presentation consisted of a bed of softened, caramelized leeks topped with two of the wrapped, fried prawns each, all presented in a wide-style soup bowl. Soma then told them to hold on a minute before eating, as he also had with him a black iron kettle and a small bowl. Asking for a special tableside presentation, he was given the nod to go ahead before pouring into each bowl a serving of the velvety potato and cauliflower soup, piping hot. He then took some of the fried leeks that were in the bowl and sprinkled some on top of each bowl to finish it off.
As the judges began to taste the soup, they began to realize why Soma had presented it the way he did. First, it kept the soup piping hot up to the moment of presentation. In addition, it allowed for the wrapped prawns and fried leeks to retain their crispiness, allowing for the different textures to come out in full force. "I give to you," he explained, "Rebel Punk-style elevated Irish leek and potato soup." The judges had to admit that the soup was perfectly seasoned (thanks to Erina), and that the variety of textures made the dish that much more enjoyable. In addition, the fried potato and prawn topping with the guanciale definitely evoked many of the flavors of Ireland in a way that would be very welcome in a high-end restaurant.
Even Azami had to concede that Soma had done well in his appetizer dish. As he said this, the rebels in the cage started to get excited, as this indicated that they may have a chance of pulling this off after all. However, they knew they needed to temper themselves for the time being, as there were still two courses to go in the match. Furthermore, the entrée course would pit Erina against the first seat and seemingly unbeatable Eishi. While they all had confidence in Erina's abilities, there was still a question of whether Eishi was just too much.
Several minutes later, Eishi was ready to present his entrée dish – a dish he considered the best thing he could cook at the moment. His White Armor Plate: Sauce Chevreuil was truly something that one would think only a master chef with years of experience could pull off, and yet, Eishi seemed to have done it. He had encased a venison roast with a salt crust to not only season the roast, but to keep it perfectly moist and tender. For the sauce chevreuil, he had used the venison's juices and blood as the base for a sauce that exponentially elevated the roast's flavors. Along with the mushrooms and other garnishes on the plate, it was undoubtedly a harmonious and cohesive dish of the highest order.
What's more, the dish Eishi had created was a perfect accompaniment to the appetizer Rindo served, as the ingredients all complimented and fed one another. Each of the judges viewed the dish as perfection, and felt like the two Central dishes in tandem so far had brought them to a culinary equivalent of Eden. This gave the rebels a great amount of concern. Not only had the top two seats performed at the absolute top of their game so far, but the dishes they presented were both terrific compliments to each other, which only enhanced their standing as part of a single gourmet meal. As the rebels' worries began to mount, things got worse from their perspective when Decora, Courage, and Anne were suddenly stripped of their clothes, leaving them in their undergarments, much to their embarrassment. Azami chuckled and explained that his gifting wave had been accidentally unleashed. "I guess the dishes served by my chefs at Central were too much for me to control," he commented.
This confused several people, including Daniel, as they had thought that only blood members of the Nakiri family had that particular ability. However, it was explained that those who married into the family received this ability, despite not having the blood of the Nakiri line. This only served to confuse Daniel even more, "That shouldn't be scientifically possible," he stated. "How could something that is a genetic trait be passed to someone without those genetics?" Nobody could answer that question, as all that was known is that it was, in fact possible, as Azami had demonstrated.
Nonetheless, Erina seemed undeterred, as she continued to work on her entrée dish, with some assistance from both Soma and Daniel. Seeing the first two dishes from Central, she decided to make a couple of alterations to the dish. As she explained them to Daniel, who was helping with a critical component, he mostly deferred to Erina without any debate, but there was one aspect where he asked her, "Are you absolutely sure that will work here?" Erina nodded as she exclaimed, "Don't forget who you're talking about here!" Daniel then sighed and said, "Alright, I'll trust you on this." Thanks to the help, Erina was able to complete the dish and make it ready for presentation just as the entrée time frame was up.
When she brought her dish to the judges table to be served, while it did look like something that would be found in a fine dining restaurant, it didn't seem like anything particularly special. On the plate was a piece of lamb tenderloin cooked to a perfect medium-rare wrapped en croûte. In between the bread layer and the lamb was duxelles made with mushrooms, carrots, and other aromatics that would be found in an Irish lamb stew. On the side, she served Boulud-style mashed potatoes (basically half potatoes, half butter) made with garlic butter and mixed with finely chopped chives. She described it as Irish Lamb Stew – Delinquent Daughter Style.
As Azami looked at it, he was clearly unimpressed as he commented, "My, how low you have fallen in the years I have been away. Clearly, you are in need of retraining if you really plan on being a gourmet chef in this world. I will not eat this – it is clearly inferior to the dishes served by my chefs at Central." The crowd then began to murmur in confusion, as this was the first time in a supposedly non-rigged match that they had seen a judge refuse to taste a presented dish – many of them even began to wonder whether such an action was allowed under the rules of a food war.
Erina, however, stood before her father stoically, seemingly unaffected by his insults towards her. She then exclaimed sarcastically, "Ohhh, it seems that my own father is so superior that he is able to judge the quality of a dish without even tasting it!" She then gave a slight grin as she added, "It looks like Daniel was right about you – you are afraid of us." Everyone in the arena that wasn't competing gasped at this, as they never would have expected Erina to make such a statement to her own father. Azami just sat there, seemingly amused at the statement as he replied, "Of course not. I'm just simply stating the facts. There is no way that this dish, which has been sullied by the ideals of those detestable rebel chefs, could possibly be as delicious as what my perfect chefs have served."
Erina was still undeterred as she stated, "If you're so sure, then surely it wouldn't hurt you to take at least one bite of my dish to confirm that 'statement of fact.' You don't want to look like a coward in front of the entire student body, not to mention your 'perfect chefs,' do you?" Azami then sported a look of great annoyance on his face, not only at the defiance his daughter was displaying, but also at the fact that she had now backed him into a corner. He sighed and reluctantly agreed to taste the dish. Before he dug in, however, Erina stopped him in order to put the finishing touch on. She then took out several small, covered cups from her pocket, and spilled the contents of the cups onto each plate – small dark gelatin cubes that melted over the meat upon impact. While most people were curious about it, Daniel, Hisako, and Soma recognized it as the technique Soma had used for his transforming furikake rice at the entrance exam, except here, Erina used lamb stock instead of chicken.
After indicating for the judges to dig in, they all began to cut the meat and put a piece into their mouths. When they tasted it, the flavors burst into their taste buds as the female judges couldn't even describe the pleasure they were feeling at tasting this dish. The lamb was perfectly tender and was perfectly crusted on the outside from being seared. In addition, the duxelles complimented and enhanced the lamb flavor perfectly, as did the croute, which was perfectly crispy on the outside, and tender and soft on the inside. What surprised everyone the most, however, was what Erina had put into the croute to make it so flavorful and a perfect match for the lamb – finely chopped squid and creamy peanut butter. At this, jaws dropped from the entire crowd, especially from the rebels' sideline, as they knew this was the basis for just about every disgusting experiment from Soma. Yet, somehow, Erina had turned it into something remarkably delicious.
Meanwhile, the potatoes were absolutely ethereal and full of flavor. Anne then took a bite of the lamb with the croute along with the potatoes, and together, the dish worked in perfect harmony, each part feeding off the others, with the sauce from the melted gelatin cubes bringing everything together. To the female judges, if Central's dishes had shown them Eden, then the rebels' dishes took them to another plane of existence altogether.
While Azami continued to try to keep a stoic and unimpressed face, he suddenly felt a strange sensation – like he was desperately trying to keep something inside that he could no longer control. As he cried out, seemingly in pain, several loud bursts could be heard throughout the arena. As everyone wondered what it was, the judges' clothing came bursting off them – even more powerfully than when they had tasted Eishi's dish. In fact, this burst even spread to the two sidelines, as everyone on the floor of the arena aside from the competitors (including Urara) had their clothing burst off of their bodies, leaving them all in their undergarments. This proved that not only had Azami's body found Erina's dish to be delicious, but potentially even more so than Eishi's. Erina's face broke out in a grin as she simply said smugly, "You're welcome," stealing something else from Soma.
As she walked back to where Soma and Daniel were standing, she let out a deep breath, relieved that she had gotten through that and had actually stood up to her father, feeling much better about herself now. Soma gave her a big grin and said, "Way to go, Erina! That was awesome to see – even if you were sneaky and took my ideas and my catchphrase!" Erina 'humph'd and smirked as she replied, "I will hear no complaints from you. I just did what I had to do." Although she wouldn't admit it, it was a personally gratifying moment in more ways than one. Daniel then came up to her and said, "You did a truly magnificent job up there – and I don't mean just the cooking." As she nodded in thanks, Daniel added, "Thanks for everything you've done. We couldn't have gotten this far without you. Now, I hope you have enough faith in me to let me finish this off."
I hope you all like what I came up with for the appetizer and entrée! If you did, I think you will really like what I have for the dessert course – not only for Daniel, but also for Momo, too (though not as much as Daniel, LOL). Until next time…