May26
One order of the “anniversary special” coming right up!
To the surprise of no one, I was inspired to do some more cooking by an anime with drool-worthy food porn. The attention to detail in Shokugeki no Soma is amazing – you can see everything from the juices running out of meat to individual grains of pepper sprinkled on top of dishes. Not only that, the recipes are clever and use surprisingly advanced techniques you could find in any reputable restaurant’s kitchen. I can praise the recipes personally since I’ve recreated 3 of them here in this post. Want to see what’s so good about Soma’s cooking that it makes girls buckle in the knees and shamelessly moan? Put on your apron and let’s go!
“Gotcha!” Pork Roast
Right from episode 1, I knew I was going to try and recreate Soma’s dishes. This one is rather simple as it requires only a couple of cheap ingredients. As long as you have bacon and potatoes – you’re golden. This dish isn’t very filling, but boy does it pack a wallop of flavour. Want an impressive side dish or appetizer? This is your best bet. Just be wary not to overwrap the potatoes with bacon for the sake of presentation, or else you’ll be getting a big mouthful of grease.
Ingredients:Show ▼
3 potatoes
3 king oyster mushrooms
2 cloves garlic
1/2 medium onion
4 sprigs fresh rosemary
~1/4 cup red wine
~1/4 cup beef broth
as much bacon as you want
Recipe: Show ▼
1. Peel potatoes and chop into large chunks (quartering them is fine). Put the potatoes in boiling water until they are almost cooked all the way through. A fork should be able to pierce them through fairly easily.
2. Once mostly cooked, strain the potatoes out and mash them coarsely. It’s better to have a few chunks in there!
3. Finely dice mushrooms, garlic, 2 sprig of rosemary and the onions so they can cook all the way through. Add these to the mashed potatoes so they’re evenly spread throughout the mixture.
4. Line a pan with tin foil and place bacon strips beside each other to make what looks like a one layer blanket of meat (see pics below)
5. Place the mashed potato mix in the middle of your bacon blanket and form a log shape with the potatoes.
6. Wrap the bacon around. The bacon will shrink when cooked, so you can add another “bacon blanket” starting from the top of the “potato log” if you want full coverage. The bacon also won’t stay without some sort of string to tie it with. I was ghetto and used dental floss.
7. Put in the oven at 350F for ~15-20 mins. Once the bacon looks mostly cooked, set your oven to either broil or ~425F to make the bacon layer crispy. Don’t let it burn!
8. While the “pork roast” is cooking, prepare the sauce. Pour red wine into a pan on high heat until it reduces to at least half the amount.
9. Add in beef stock (to taste – I like my sauce more beefy than winey) and rosemary and lower the heat so it just simmers for a few minutes before putting the pan aside.
10. Pour the sauce (minus the rosemary) over the roast once it is done and serve!
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Soma’s Fried Rice
I can’t believe I’ve never made fried rice before this. It’s absurdly easy and the payoff is tenfold. You put in leftover rice and whatever meat you scrounge up from your fridge and get a delicious meal out of it. All I had to do, really, was use the same ingredients as Soma did based off of screenshots. I firmly stand by my choice of using edamame instead of green peas though.
Ingredients:Show ▼
1 egg
1-2 tablespoons sesame oil
1/4 cup edamame
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup thinly sliced pork belly (or any leftover meat)
1 small carrot
~1/3 package fish cake
1 cup uncooked rice (I only measured the amount before I cooked it haha oops)
2-3 tablespoons soy sauce
Recipe:Show ▼
1. Cook your rice, damnit.
2. Lightly scramble the egg in a pan and then set aside. Don’t cook them all the way.
3. Start boiling your edamame on the side while working with another pan for the main portion of your fried rice. Once the edamame is done cooking, set it aside to add to the fried rice pan later.
4. Pour sesame oil into a pan (preferably a wok) on med-high heat and then add minced garlic. Saute until it starts to turn light brown.
5. Add pork belly and stir until just barely cooked. If you’re using pre-cooked leftovers instead of raw meat, add it last with the edamame and fish cakes in step 6.
6. Add sliced carrots and saute for around 2 minutes (you don’t want them to get mushy)
7. Add edamame and fish cakes and stir for ~30 seconds
8. Add rice to the wok along with soy sauce, to taste. Add the scrambled eggs and stir it around thoroughly until everything is incorporated.
——
Chaliapin Steak Donburi
Warning: this tastes obscenely good but it will make your entire house smell like onions if you aren’t careful. Guess who wasn’t careful? Anyways, Soma wasn’t lying about green onions being a killer marinade. I experimented with both a steak that I pounded thinly and a regular one and the onions worked their magic on both. Of course, it’s better when it’s nice and thin so the flavour can spread throughout. The result is a delightfully onion-y steak that is tender, juicy, and bursting with flavour. I don’t even like onions very much and this one really did it for me. It’s my favourite out of the trio of dishes here – and it’s not even Soma’s final version of the dish!
Ingredients:Show ▼
1 steak
5 green onions
1/4 white onion
1 tablespoon butter
4 tablespoons soy sauce (optional)
Recipe: Show ▼
1. Using a sharp knife, score a steak into a checkerboard pattern, being careful not to cut all the way through. Do this on both sides.
2. Pound the steak thinly until it is around 1/4 inch thick
3. Finely mince green onions and the onions together. When finished, rub onto both sides of the meat until it’s covered. Cover and refrigerate over night.
4. When ready, gently scrape the onions off the steak and set them aside. Season the meat with salt and pepper.
5. In a med-high heat pan, melt butter until the pan is coated. Then add the steak in and cook to your preferred doneness
6. When finished, remove the steak and add the onions to the same pan. If you want a sauce with your steak, add in some soy sauce as well and stir until the onions are cooked.
7. Serve over rice, pouring the onions and sauce over top the steak
Happy Anniversary, Metanorn! This is my homage to Metanorn being around for 7 years and me being around for about 5/7 of those years. Cooking food has recently become a hobby of mine in the past couple of years, and I really like testing myself by trying to copycat fictional dishes. I’m not the only one either, as both the producer of the show and other bloggers are getting in on the Shokugeki no Soma cooking trend. Maybe you should too. Everyone loves a guy/girl/whatever who can cook.
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A neuroscience graduate, black belt, and all-around nerd. You'll either find me in my lab or curled up in my rilakkuma kigurumi watching anime.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Ahem! Yes, I’m ready to order. I’ll take one Fried Rice, one Chaliapin Steak Donburi and a Pork Roast as a side dish, please. Whoever created Shokugeki no Soma is a genius. They’ve created a new infectious craze. For the Chaliapin Steak, I like onions to a degree and would easily deal with the aroma throughout the kitchen than endure the scent of garlic. When the onions are cooked, the teary-eyed effects dissipate.
If you had a duck lying around, would you be tempted to recreate the same dish the Aldini brothers prepared in Shokugeki no Soma’s 8th episode?
5 out of 7 years. Hahaha! You seem to have forgotten that’s how much time you’ve spent here. Blogging animes must have been really distracting, huh? 😛
It’s not just the producer and other bloggers getting in on the trend, Soma’s seiyuu
KiritoYoshitsugu Matsuoka is in on it as well. He’s already had two videos of him recreating Soma’s dishes posted on ANN some time ago.POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
Coming right up!
I just saw episode 8 yesterday and man, it looked difficult. I’d have to feel really adventurous to try making that!
I’ll have to look for those videos of Soma’s seiyuu doing some cooking..! Thanks for the heads up!
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
I would gladly try every dish here. I would scrape off all the excess onions on the steak, but the resulting flavour would be fine.
Fried rice is sooooooo much fun to make. I kinda burnt out on plain rice last year (ate it in bulk every day for dietary reasons….so it kinda got to me). Now I have no reason not to get back into the swing of it.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
I’m still slowly getting used to onions. They’re alright in moderation!
It’s fun and super easy to make. Looks like you’re going to have to go buy some rice and make use of those leftovers!
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 77 comments
I tried making the Chaliapin steak the day of that episode but I think sweet onions don’t tenderize the meat enough. I used Vidalia onions which are super sweet and caramelized deliciously for a great topping, but the steak wasn’t quite as tender as I had hoped.
By green onion, do you mean scallions?
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
Nice to see more people trying out the dishes! I used a mixture of onions, but I think the green onions (exactly the same thing as scallions) must really be what tenderizes it and imparts the oniony flavour.
Mmmm a sweet onion topping does sound good though.
POWUH: iLurker with 1 comments
I got all excited to tell my mom about the onion “marinade,” and she said it used to be her dad’s super-secret grilling technique back in the late 1940’s. And that it’s in Betty Crocker. Everything old is new again!
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
Oh wow, guess Soma is taking a few hints from Betty Crocker then!