(upbeat music)
- Oh.
- Hey. what's up, everybody?
It's your girl Merle, and today,
we're gonna be making a another vegan substitute.
So today, we're gonna be making gyukatsu
out of watermelon.
(crowd applauding)
I had dozens of people tag me in this recipe on TikTok,
and it is, I mean, it's something else.
When I first watched the video,
I was like, whoa, that beef is rare.
And apparently, it's inspired by Will Horowitz,
who is the same guy
who is notorious for another vegan substitute we did.
It's time to try this ham, watermelon ham.
That's right, the watermelon ham.
Gyukatsu is a traditional Japanese specialty.
Usually, it's made with Wagyu beef.
In Japanese, gyu means beef, and katsu means cutlet.
So without further ado, let's get into this.
So the first thing we're gonna do
is we're going slice up our watermelons.
So I'm gonna start by slicing mine in half.
Ah, beautiful.
Just a pretty fruit, you know.
Be very careful when you're doing this.
Then we're gonna cut these into little rectangles.
There's no need for any watermelon to go to waste.
You can scoop the red flesh out of this
and just add it to smoothies, or just, you know.
In the past, we haven't had the best history
with meat substitutes using watermelon.
- It's very wet.
- Is it cold or warm?
(record screeches)
- Mmm. Mmm.
- My mind is open. I'm ready for change to come.
Now, we're going to salt our watermelon cutlets.
This will help to pull some of the moisture out of it,
because, as you probably know, watermelon is like 92% water.
Flip them over and salt the back.
While these are resting
and the salt is pulling out the moisture,
we're gonna mix together our marinade.
We're gonna add some soy sauce,
some mirin, sake, and molasses.
We're gonna mix that up.
We're gonna go ahead and we're gonna pat these dry
and remove most of that salt.
Then I'm just gonna toss these in a Tupperware container
and pour the marinade over,
and I'm gonna let them sit
while we make the Negi miso sauce.
Add our mirin, sake, miso paste, sugar, soy sauce,
and grated ginger.
And we're just gonna mix that up.
Add some green scallions into our pan,
and then I'm gonna drizzle some sesame oil over the top.
We're gonna let those cook over a medium-high heat
and just let them fry up for about a minute.
Then we'll add our sauce and cook it
until it's slightly reduced.
Should only take about another minute.
Then we're gonna remove that from the heat
and transfer it back into our bowl.
Okay, now it's time for us
to put our watermelon cutlets into the pan.
All right!
There is one thing that keeps popping into my mind
every time I look down,
and it's that I'm really not looking forward
to cleaning this pan.
Got any tips for how to clean a charred stainless-steel pan?
Let me know, please.
It does look like the natural sugar from the watermelon
is sort of caramelizing at the top.
That's nice.
Okay, so the next thing we're gonna do
is we're gonna make a nice cake flour dredge.
So I'm gonna add equal parts cake flour, and water.
Mix that together.
And we're gonna start by coating our watermelon
in the flour, then our cake flour dredge,
and then some panko breadcrumbs.
Now, once this is fully coated, I'm gonna set it aside.
Oh yeah.
All right, I'm. gonna do that for the rest of these,
and then it's time to fry them.
I hate deep-frying things.
Oh!
I hate it. Hot oil really scares me.
Okay. I do it for you.
I do it for all of you.
(funky music)
Hmm. That wasn't actually that bad.
It looks good.
We don't want it to burn.
Come on, baby. Come to mama.
Oh, yeah.
Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha!
Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and say it,
'cause I know you're all thinking it.
I nailed this. Yeah, I nailed it.
I saw in her TikTok, she did this cool little ASMR moment,
so I figured I should probably bring that into this, too.
Welcome to Vegan ASMR.
I'm so happy that you decided to treat yourself today.
Just close your eyes and listen to the dulcet tones
of the fried watermelon.
(panko scraping)
(upbeat music)
A couple of things to unpack here.
For once,
the watermelon flavor doesn't feel overwhelming to me.
It doesn't feel like, oh, this is obviously watermelon.
It is like a beautiful symphony of savory and sweet
and crunchy and soft,
so from that perspective, this is really, really good.
I don't think that Aria's gonna say
this tastes like Wagyu beef.
Oh.
This is the most well-disguised watermelon substitute
I've tried to date, not to date, but up to this day.
- All right. I'm curious as to what that is.
Delicious. I love it.
The bell pepper. Oh, that bell pepper tomato?
It looks a little bit of roasted bell pepper.
Mmm. Oh.
I got a hint of what the flavor is.
Is it watermelon? - Yes.
It's watermelon? Wow.
Okay, that really had a little hit
of the watermelon flavor.
But you know what?
It's weird 'cause I hated the smoked watermelon.
- Yeah, I know.
- That's not what watermelon's supposed to be.
But I really like this.
I think it's the marinade that's very nice.
Very Asian. Asians, we just do it better.
This is still pretty horrifying
If you think about it, actually.
So overall, does it taste like beef?
No. I give it maybe a two on that scale.
But in terms of actual flavor, I'd give it like a solid 7.7.
- Thank you.
- Ta ta.
- Thank you.
- I'm sweaty. I was rolling around with men.
(record screeches)
- Add context to that.
- No, no context needed.
I love her.
(upbeat music)