02x06 - The Japanese Connection

[bunniefuu]

This is before akedeshi?

What was it called again?

- Katsuobushi.

- Katsuobushi.

- Okay.

- If it's salty, it's him.

- It's not me.

- That looks really fancy.

Right center. Just one is enough.

You don't want to make,

like, a flower thing?

- No.

- No? Okay.

I'm trying to be creative.

- Please don't hurt my soul.

- Okay.

- Fast

- Okay.

And the most important thing is

Enjoy your roll.

How does it taste?

Creating a couture dress

requires excellent craftsmanship

and weave detailing.

I'm curious to see if I can bring

my design prowess to the kitchen

and create a dish

that will take my loved ones

to greater heights.

Hi, my name is Jovian Mandagie.

I'm a fashion designer by profession

but I think I'm more

of an entrepreneur.

I don't think I'm a great cook.

I can cook a little bit,

but I eat more than I cook.

Cycling through nature on my bike

helps me with having focus

in whatever I do in life.

In the kitchen,

focus is very important

to create a dish

that has creativity and simplicity.

Hi, I'm Nik Michael Imran.

I'm a chef for the past

about ten years.

The first time

I remember cooking in the kitchen

was when my dad had guests over.

He had all the ingredients ready,

but he wanted me to cook.

So, it was dessert,

it was crêpes Suzette

and I served it up with a sauce

and also vanilla ice cream.

Hey, Chef.

- Hey.

- How are you, man?

- Jovian, how are you, how are you?

- Very good, very good. Yourself?

- Five, six years?

- Yeah, probably, yeah.

- About four or five years.

- You look the same, man.

Thank you very much.

You, too, man. You, too.

I was looking forward

to having Jovian in the kitchen

because I know he

he must be good with his hands

being a fashion designer.

He's actually done the work.

He's worked with his tools,

with his hands.

And it's you know, in some ways

it's very similar

to working in the kitchen.

I'll be having my wife and a friend

coming over in the evening

and I need to serve them

- a nice dinner.

- Okay.

Is it possible for you

to help me out?

'Cause you're an old friend

- Thank you.

- I'm more than happy to help.

I'm actually very excited to spend

a couple of hours with Chef Nik

and to learn a very unique dish.

- Japanese food, right?

- Japanese.

That will be the best.

My wife loves Japanese.

Japanese food is quite delicate,

complex, and can be very technical.

- So, miso soup.

- Okay.

- Chawanmushi.

- Chawanmushi, my favorite.

- Awesome.

- And then we're gonna do

a slightly modern fancy dish.

A salmon truffle ponzu.

Oh, nice. Fancy.

And lastly,

we're gonna do a roll platter.

I think, you know, Japanese cuisine

is something

that a lot of people are afraid of

but it's actually

once you understand how to do it

it is really not that difficult,

just like everything else.

- Hands are washed?

- Yep.

- Okay. Put on your apron.

- Washed. Thank you.

First-timer

to cook anything Japanese.

Let's hope that I get

to pull it through.

First, we're gonna start

with the miso soup.

The start of it is the dashi.

- So, over here, I already have

- Okay.

- I always have this standby.

- Okay.

It's just water and kombu.

Next, we also need the katsuobushi,

which is the shaved fish stock.

- It's over there.

- I'll get it for you. Here you go.

That's exactly what we need.

- So, grab a pot onto the stove.

- Okay.

- All righty.

- Great.

In goes this broth. Turn on the heat.

Next, I need you to grab me

the spring onion, tofu, miso

- and wakame.

- Got it, Chef.

So, we need to hydrate the wakame.

So, a little bit of water

goes in there.

Okay, and I can see that they're

Goes to life. Comes into life.

- It blooms.

- Yeah, it blooms. Yeah, yeah.

It only takes about a minute or two.

- It doesn't take much time.

- Okay.

But this one, we're just gonna add

- into the miso soup later on.

- I see.

Miso soup is like a staple dish to

to dine in any Japanese restaurant.

I mean, it is a must-have dish.

And now we're gonna chop up the tofu.

- Your left hand on top of the tofu.

- Right, right. Okay.

- Left hand on the top.

- Correct. That's the way.

So, I've dealt with tofus many times

and I don't handle fragile

or delicate things very well.

- Voilà.

- Fantastic.

- So, now

- Not too bad.

- Half.

- Okay.

And then half-half again.

Like a Japanese chef.

Really? Not bad, huh?

I think I did it okay.

But he did say

and he whispered to me, like

you can do better than that.

- Voilà.

- Fantastic.

Okay, we can set that aside.

So, clean up the chopping board

and the knife, too.

Correct. Wow, Jovian.

He's actually really good

in the kitchen, I'm surprised.

I think he should

definitely practice more

'cause he's got what it takes.

Maybe not as a career, 'cause

that might take another 10, 20 years

and he's a very busy man.

Next is the spring onions.

You take a few pieces first.

So, it's actually,

you put the knife on top

and you slide it that way.

Will get that done for you.

So now, this is this is starting

to come to a light simmer.

So, now, we're gonna

just remove the kombu.

- Okay.

- Here we go.

And now we're gonna

turn off the fire.

- All right.

- And dump in the katsuobushi.

Give this a stir, yeah?

Just a light stir.

You don't wanna agitate it too much.

Okay.

So, now it hasn't steeped

for 15 minutes yet, right?

We just put in the katsuobushi

but I want you to taste what,

like, the kombu flavor tastes like

before you get

the katsuobushi flavor, so

Okay, but this is before akedeshi?

What was it called again?

- Katsuobushi.

- Katsuobushi.

All right, I want you to taste

what, like, pure MSG taste like.

Right, it tastes savory.

- But it's very bland.

- Yeah. It is.

- Because there's no salt right now.

- Correct.

So, you need salt

to bring out that flavor as well.

Okay, so, now,

we're gonna strain this.

Now we're gonna make the miso soup.

That needs to go

into this pot right now.

All of them?

Everything, we just

wanna warm it through.

And that's especially true

for everything else here.

In goes the tofu.

I don't mind putting in

the spring onion now.

Now the wakame,

the edible seaweed can go in.

Okay.

Perfect. Now, what the Japanese do

- is they use a strainer.

- Okay.

We're going to break it up

in the strainer

and then it's gonna

dissolve out of it.

In goes the miso.

And then all we're gonna do

is just break it up.

- And as we lift it up, it goes here.

- There you go. Okay.

Okay? We can turn off the heat now.

- Okay.

- Now, give it a taste.

Okay.

- Perfect. Yeah.

- Yeah?

It is not as simple as we thought.

Getting the right ingredient,

the right quality, measurements

is all you need

to prepare a perfect miso soup.

- All right. So we're done with that.

- All right.

Let's get started

with one of your favorites

- which is the chawanmushi.

- Chawanmushi.

So, the basic ingredients required

for chawanmushi is eggs and dashi.

So, we have our dashi meat just now.

Okay. So, I cracked the eggs.

We're gonna just

break up the egg yolks

and make it h*m*.

What I like to do to make sure is

you just pick it up and see

if there's any white strands.

- I see. There is. Okay.

- See, there's a little bit there.

So, just a little bit more,

you're good to go.

So, pour dashi until it's 160.

Chef Nik gave me

very good tips on measuring.

He told me one egg to be mixed

with 1.1mL dashi.

So, that was a very good tip,

and it works out well, yeah.

I like to add a little bit

of soy sauce, not too much.

I don't want it to darken.

- A little bit of salt.

- Yeah, okay.

- Enough? A bit more.

- Good.

Okay.

If it's salty, it's him. It's not me.

Now, this is gonna go

into our chawanmushi bowl.

You can use a tall one

or shallow one.

But right before that, we have

to prepare our other stuff first.

- Okay. The mushrooms.

- The mushrooms.

So, mushrooms, all we need to do

is just remove the stem

and then the tofu.

Tofu on top.

Beautiful. Well done.

And then,

mushroom goes right on top.

- Pour on the sides.

- On the sides.

- Ready for the steamer.

- Okay.

So, the whole bowl

- will go into the steamer.

- Correct.

If you were to deal with

anything to be steamed

it is quite complicated and delicate

so I knew it that preparing

a chawanmushi

will be very technical as well.

Now we have to make our sauce.

We're gonna put in

a little bit of dashi.

Next, we're gonna add in soy sauce

- and then we're gonna add in mirin.

- Mirin.

- Now, mirin is an alcoholic product.

- Yeah.

But this one that I have here

is a halal mirin.

So, we have cornstarch,

bowl, and a little bit of water.

So we're gonna make a slurry.

So, this is warm through

as it's almost simmering

and you're gonna add spoon by spoon.

Spoon by spoon, yeah.

You wanna have, like, a jelly-like,

thick liquid on top.

So, that looks fantastic.

We'll turn off the heat now.

- Okay.

- And let it cool off.

All right, so, it's been minutes,

and let's have a look at our custard.

So, now look at the way

it jiggle-jiggle.

So, now ginkgo nuts go on top.

Add a little bit.

So, one, two, three,

then more egg mixture on top.

So, back on the heat it goes.

I think we should take about a minute

or two just to set the top

- and we're done.

- Okay, perfect.

Looking forward to it.

- So, is it cooked, Chef?

- I think so.

- Yeah?

- Let's have a look.

- Oh, nice.

- Perfect.

Now we're gonna add

the garnishing on top.

- This is

- Uni.

- the best uni in the world.

- Yeah.

And we're going to put this

right on top of the chawanmushi.

- Okay.

- You wanna put, like

maybe two or three, two slivers

right on top of the mushroom.

- Voilà. Okay, not bad.

- Okay.

So now, we're gonna put

a little bit of microgreens.

- And last but not least, ikura.

- Ikura.

You can either put it around

the mushroom there just a little bit

or you can put that everywhere.

We'll put around it, yeah?

Around the mushroom.

- Okay.

- That's perfect.

That looks really fancy.

To be really honest,

it was not as difficult as I thought.

It was quite simple.

I mean, not much

of ingredients needed.

But just that you need

to get the measurements right.

All right, Chef. So, what's next?

- So now we're going to make sashimi.

- Okay.

So, sashimi is,

everyone knows, just raw fish.

But we're gonna do

like, a modern take on it

to make a

a really special sauce with it

- which is a ponzu truffle sauce.

- Right.

But I'm gonna teach you

exactly how to do it, okay?

I'm a fashion designer.

I design very well,

but I don't sew well.

So, when it comes to cooking

I can cook,

but I don't prepare things very well.

I don't have that patience

when it comes

to little, little things

and very delicate things.

- Okay.

- But how we're gonna slice this is

about three to five millimeters.

So, all you do is just

one smooth motion.

And at the end, the tip here,

will drag through this fish

- and give you a nice clean cut.

- Okay.

And this needs to go directly

on our very cold plate here.

Honestly, almost everything that

I do today was because of my dad.

He taught me the fundamentals

of French and Italian cuisine.

But, you know,

even the way I grip a knife was

inherited from him.

I'm just gonna fan it up

and continue all the way around.

- All right. I'll do it.

- Can you do that? Okay.

Chef Nik was really eyeing

and looking at the way how I cut it

and making sure

that I don't damage the knives

and also the chopping board.

Almost there.

Yeah, very good first try.

It was quite nerve-racking.

I was actually sweating just now.

It's not as simple

as you think, actually, yeah?

Nope.

And the last piece. Beautiful.

- I did it.

- So, we're going to make the sauce.

- Ponzu sauce.

- Correct.

- Okay. What is ponzu?

- Ponzu

Ponzu is soy sauce with citrus.

Normally, they use yuzu,

but what we have here is some lemon.

It works as well.

So, in here goes our ponzu.

- This is already premixed.

- Okay.

But I like to play

with the balance a little bit.

So, in goes the ponzu, yeah?

Soy sauce next.

- Then we're gonna add truffle oil.

- Okay.

So, we're also gonna add

some fresh truffles to it.

- Okay. Should we shave it?

- So that it With a grater, yeah.

Okay.

Grate some lemon zest.

Give that a mix.

I'm so tempted

to smell it and taste it.

Go ahead, give it a try. Yeah.

It tastes five-star. Yeah.

It deserves Michelin Star as well.

I know it's a bit much,

but it tasted so good.

So, now we're just gonna

garnish everything up.

So, we have some microgreens here.

Green, red, and shiso leaf.

So, the idea here

is shiso leaf at the bottom

and then make, like,

a fluffy mound on top

and then we're gonna

drizzle the sauce on top.

Can I use the balance

of truffle as decoration as well?

- Yeah, garnish it.

- All right. I'll garnish it, okay.

- But use it at the end.

- Okay.

Not the whole chunk of it.

- It's a very expensive decoration.

- Please don't hurt me.

- Please don't hurt my soul.

- Okay.

- Okay.

- So first, is the leaf?

Yeah, just one.

Bring it right, right, center.

Just one is enough.

You don't want to make,

like, a flower thing?

- No.

- No? Okay.

I'm trying to be creative.

Yeah, Japanese

is all about simplicity.

- Yeah. Less is more.

- Zen. Okay.

And then the drizzling of the sauce.

Perfect.

- Okay, hang on, Chef.

- Yeah.

- What is this?

- I forgot about that.

- That's yuzu pearl.

- Okay, so what do I do with this?

Do I sprinkle it around or

Up to you. it's a garnish, yeah.

So, there you go,

your first sashimi dish.

- What do you feel?

- So proud of it.

So proud of it.

I can't wait

to cook these again at home.

So, what you think

we have in front of us?

Is this sushi rolls?

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah? Cool.

The most-most important thing

to sushi is the rice.

So, you gotta cook it right

make sure you wash it

like I have done there

and then we can put it

into the rice cooker.

- So, in we go.

- Okay.

So, strain it.

Get as much water

as you can out of it.

Perfect.

Right? So, that is good to go.

This has got to heat up,

pressurize this

- and take about 10 to 15 minutes.

- Okay.

Now we have to prepare

our other ingredients.

So, we have a few

different kind of rolls

- that we can make.

- Okay.

But the most important one I want

to show you is the California roll

which requires cucumber,

avocado, crab stick

and then a little bit of tobiko

and lastly is some mayonnaise.

So, let me show you

or you want to do it yourself?

- I'll try myself.

- Okay. Let's do it.

Let's start with the

with the cucumbers.

So, cucumber, lengthwise,

you wanna cut, like, little strips.

That's how to open up an avocado.

Cut it into wedges.

That's fantastic. Now the eggs.

Same thing as like the tofu just now.

- Fast. Hurry up.

- Okay.

- Perfect.

- Okay.

Great, so the veggie part of this

the rolls is done.

So, for sushi-zu. Sushi-zu is

the vinegar for the rice.

You must have vinegar,

salt, and sugar.

- Okay.

- Here we have some rice vinegar.

In that goes. A little bit of salt

- Okay.

- and sugar.

However, you don't want

to have solid in your sushi rice.

- Okay.

- Gotta mix that in.

Done.

- Thank you.

- You're welcome.

- Okay. What's next?

- Okay.

So, the only other ingredient

we haven't touched on here

is we have some sesame seeds,

this has already been toasted

and then tobiko, soy sauce,

and then over here is wasabi.

So, that's

that's all there is to it.

- Now, we just wait for the rice.

- Okay, perfect.

So, rice is done.

Now, this is where

you wanna have a look at

if it's enough water inside or not.

Wants to separate into grains,

that's what we want.

- Yeah.

- So, this is gonna go in here.

- We have to do that.

- Got it.

So, what you wanna do

is you want to break up the clumps

and separate it into grains.

- It cools down faster as well.

- Correct.

- Yeah?

- So, I'm happy with that.

Now you're gonna help me spoon over

- a little bit of that vinegar.

- Okay.

I'm just going to cover it

with some cloth.

This is gonna let it breathe

but also maintain the temperature.

- Now, let's start making rolls.

- Okay.

I'm gonna show you one

and then we're gonna see how you do.

- Please.

- Okay? Okay.

So, seaweed, we're just

going to cut this into half.

Dry hand on the left,

wet hand on the right.

Grab a little bit of rice.

Goes in the middle. Okay?

Can put in our mayo,

in goes crab stick

with a bit of cucumber,

egg, if you want avocado.

Now, this corner needs

to touch on top here.

Just like that.

- Got it.

- And then you just roll it up.

And then to stick it together,

just one grain of rice right there.

It acts like a glue.

A little bit of tobiko.

Soy sauce.

And the most important thing is

Enjoy your roll.

- It's good? Okay, all right.

- Go ahead.

Oh, it's this side.

Supposed to be that side.

- But okay.

- Oh, really?

So, this tip have to meet this.

- I got it.

- Not bad.

Oh, Nina's gonna be

really proud of that.

Yep. I hope so.

- Enough? Yeah?

- Yeah, yeah.

Shall I enjoy this?

- No no. Nina will enjoy it.

- No, no. Okay.

- No, no, go ahead.

- Okay.

Nik, that was world-class.

You know, I never imagined myself

getting to cook

such refined Japanese food

and I'm so, so happy that I get

to learn all this with you.

But you know what,

time is ticking, and

I need to actually pick up Nina now.

She's about to arrive.

You saw that

I can do it myself, right?

Yeah, yeah. You did really good.

Is it possible if you could, like,

just wrap just a few more temaki

and, like, help me

to serve all the temaki

and all other dishes later?

We're gonna we're gonna

treat her a good dinner on a yacht.

- You owe me one.

- Yeah.

I don't know what it is,

but I'll call for it.

- Okay. No worries

- For sure, for sure, okay.

Thank you.

I'll see you in a bit, yeah?

Don't forget the apron.

- Hi, honey.

- Hey.

(Japanese)

Hello.

Thanks for coming.

- Here you go, Japanese food.

- Japanese.

- Hey, buddy.

- How are you?

That looks great.

My name is Nina Ismail Sabri.

I am Jovian's wife.

My name is Faiz Ariffin,

and I'm an old friend of Jovian.

Jovian is amazing.

He can cook a lot of things.

But his specialties

are Indonesian food.

- So, we're having Japanese.

- Okay.

The first one is chawanmushi

and then we also have

a salmon sashimi with ponzu sauce

and then we have the California roll

and you finish it with the miso soup.

- Okay.

- Miso soup.

I hope you guys like it.

Yeah, there's also,

of course, your favorite.

Uni. Fresh uni.

- So excited to see your reaction.

- So good.

- Yeah? Nice?

- Very nice.

I was very, very impressed

'cause I love Japanese food

and he has never cooked

Japanese for me.

The sashimi,

it is very, very delicately cut

so that you get the right size.

- What sauce is this?

- Ponzu sauce?

Ponzu sauce.

It's made of ponzu oil, soy sauce

- and also truffle, yeah.

- Truffle.

I love it because it has,

like, a lot of taste in my mouth.

- A lot of taste, yeah.

- A lot of things going on.

It looks simple, but there's a lot

of things happening there.

I really love the ponzu with truffle

'cause I love truffles.

The next one

is your regular Californian roll

but, of course,

it is a bit more special.

The crab stick is imported

from Japan itself, you know?

So it's very special.

Give it a try. Yeah?

So very good, temaki rolls

comes with warm rice in it, you know?

Spoken like a true chef, Jovian.

How's it going, guys?

- How's everything?

- Yeah, very nice.

- Yeah?

- Yeah.

So, Jovian is a chef now?

- Japanese chef?

- No.

Did you know

that he cooked everything?

- No.

- Yeah.

- I thought it was you.

- No, I didn't do anything.

I just I just got here.

- No way.

- Yeah.

Oh, my God. Thank you.

Now he can make

Japanese food for me.

Yeah, he has no excuse now.

Yes, that's good.

Initially, I thought that he probably

was there helping Chef Nik.

He didn't do much.

When Chef Nik told us

that he did most of it

I was honestly, really impressed

'cause it's really, really good.

I think he put his heart and soul

and love into it

and we enjoyed eating it for sure.

Absolutely.

I didn't thought

it was Jovian's cooking.

Okay, I'm gonna leave you guys to it.

Why don't you enjoy?

If you need anything,

any more that you made already

just let me know.

- Thank you, Chef.

- No problem.

- Thank you.

- See ya.

As a chef, I've always been

very analytical, very fact-based.

'Cause I didn't go to cooking school

so I had a lot of people

ask me questions

on when where did you learn this,

and how do you know that?

I just broke it down

to the essential, bare basic

and went to science to understand

every single thing I could

about everything that I'm doing.

But remember, cooking is not just

about weighing grams and milliliters.

It's all about the taste

of the tongue, which is subjective.

I have imagined it to be that fun

and I'm glad that I got

to learn it from an expert

and I'm looking forward

to do it on my own as well at home.

I hope that I will do it

as good as what I did today.

So, the miso soup

was prepared from scratch.

So, first, we soaked the kombu

and then we cooked it

with katsuobushi, miso paste

all the seaweed and things like that.

- How does it taste? Fresh?

- So good I wasn't even listening.

No, I'm kidding.

- It's so good.

- It tastes so good.

The miso soup is quite interesting.

There's a bit

of a sweet taste into it

which is a bit unique to my taste

and I quite like it.

I enjoyed cooking every single thing

for you guys today

and I hope that I can cook more often

on Japanese dishes

and I get to perfect it.

Actually, every Sunday,

it's like somewhat a routine.

He does it, like,

maybe once or twice a month.

So he cooks at home,

and I'll eat it, yeah.

Rate of the out of ten

what is your verdict

on my cooking on Japanese?

- Eight and a half.

- Okay. Nice.

- Like, honestly, I love it.

- Thank you.

But I was also very amazed

by his skills

in cooking Japanese food.

For someone who hasn't done it before

it was quite amazing.

Overall, I think

that he did super, super well

so I'm so proud of him.

I'll give ten out of ten

for someone

that never done it before.

Because you know why?

Because I get to eat it all the time.

He's scared

that he didn't get invited.

This is the first

Japanese he's cooked.

For him to cook Japanese food

I'm very impressed.

And if he opens a shop

I probably will go for it.

Yeah, I'll be there every day.

If it's true that he's really

passionate about food

and perhaps even Japanese cuisine

in terms of sharing

that pleasure of food

with his family and friends

I think he should definitely do it.

He was a very tough chef.

He drilled me.

But I know for sure

that he's a perfectionist

so he knows what he is doing.

And I'm glad that I learned

a lot of things from him.

You're amazing.

(Japanese) Thank you.