[dramatic music, speaking Japanese]
Hey what's up guys, welcome back to Binging with Babish
where this week, thanks to a sponsorship from Crunchyroll,
we are taking our first ever look at the foods from anime.
The notorious pineapple-curry fried rice from Food Wars
seemed like a great place to start.
First up we've got to toast and grind our spice mix for the curry,
I'm going to use a few dried Chinese chilis,
a teaspoon of coriander seed,
a teaspoon of cardamom,
two teaspoons of cumin seed,
and standing in for fenugreek, we're going to use a teaspoon of mustard seeds.
This is going to help us keep that golden pineapple colour.
I've also got one crushed-up cinnamon stick in there, and we're going to toast the whole lot until
fragrant, and a little, tiny bit of smoke wisps into my waiting nose.
After they've cooled a bit, into the spice grinder they go,
to get ground.
Greatly.
Now at this point if you're trying to make a curry powder that you're going to keep in your spice rack,
we would add equal parts ground ginger and turmeric.
But, we are going to go for the fresh stuff.
The fried rice in the scene was clearly made with short grain rice,
so I'm going with sushi rice.
Which I'm going to cook using the method I've been so fond of recently,
combining the manufacturer-suggested proportions of rice and water,
covering tightly and placing in a 325°F oven
for five minutes longer than the specified boiling time.
Now I'm getting the accoutrement ready for our fried rice,
you want to have everything ready to go for when the time comes to wok and roll.
Sorry.
So in the case of this sushi rice, after 25 minutes it emerges from the oven
fluffy and ready to go.
But it also comes with the harrowing realisation
that I haven't made nearly enough for this dish,
so, time to double up.
Both batches of which I'm going to lay out on a sheet pan
and let cool at room temperature for at least an hour.
While that cools, let's prep our pineapple.
We are simply slicing this guy in half,
placing a cut skin-deep around the outside of the pineapple
and scoring at maybe 2cm wide intervals.
So we can scoop out into conveniently-sized chunks,
and be left with nice pineapple baking bowls.
All of our players are in position, so it's time to move over to the wok.
We're heating about three tablespoons of vegetable oil
in a well-seasoned wok
over maximum flame.
The key to wok cooking is high heat,
that's why they've got those jet engines at every Chinese restaurant you've ever been to.
We're adding two lightly-beaten eggs to the oil
and cooking just until barely set.
Before adding a finely-chopped red pepper, carrots and bird's eye chili, if you want a little bit of hotness.
We're then going to add about a tablespoon of grated ginger, about a tablespoon of grated turmeric,
and even though it doesn't make much sense with pineapple, one large clove of garlic, crushed.
Continue cooking those over high heat until just fragrant,
and add the titular ingredient,
the rice.
Break it up beforehand if it's gotten clumpy,
and cook it just enough to start heating it through,
before adding a little bit of our spice powder,
a little bit of kosher salt,
and a tablespoon each of unseasoned rice wine vinegar, fish sauce,
sesame oil, and soy sauce.
We're going minimal on the soy sauce because we want to keep this stir-fry brightly coloured.
Stir and continue to cook over a high heat until everybody has gotten to know each other,
and add our pineapple.
My instinct is to sear the pineapple for more flavour,
but it looks pretty untouched by heat in the anime,
So, we're just going to let it heat through
along with some sliced green onions and what looked to me like chopped cashews.
Taste for seasoning, and leave it a little under-salted,
because we are of course salting the inside of our pineapple.
With the hopes that this will imbue our rice with some sort of salty sweetness, or something.
I should also note that I've slightly undercooked the rice,
because this guy is going to spend a solid half hour
in the oven, steaming inside its pineapple package.
I'm putting this guy in a 375°F oven
for thirty minutes.
While that's going in, we're going to generously butter a bowl, we're going to use this to shape our rice.
And out of the oven it comes, hopefully filled with an additional shot of pineapple flavour.
Scoop out all the rice into our buttered bowl.
I'm sorry if I'm overdoing it a little bit with the alliteration.
And pop our plate overtop our tediously-tureened buttered bowl, in which waits our rice...round...thing.
Garnish with the pineapple...what are these called? Leaves?
Will it win competitions and advance Chinese cuisine, as described in the show?
I don't think so.
But it's a damn tasty stir-fry.
And a taste test pre in-post pineapple bake revealed that
while it adds a little bit more pineapple flavour, you're best off
skipping the theatrics and dicking right in.
Hey guys, I want to thank Crunchyroll for sponsoring this episode and introducing me
to the world of anime, I've never really been into anime at all, and this is an exciting opportunity for me to learn
about a new art form.
And I wanted to ask you guys,
What is your favourite? What is your favourite to show newcomers to the genre?
Leave a comment and tell me where to start, and if you haven't signed up to Crunchyroll yet,
go get yourself a 30-day free trial at crunchyroll.com/babish.
I'm looking forward to you guys' suggestions on what I should watch and what food I should recreate.