The Art of Anime Cuisine: A Culinary Journey with Babish

Hey there, guys! Welcome back to Binging with Babish, where this week we're taking our first-ever look at the foods from anime. Special thanks to Crunchyroll for sponsoring this episode and introducing me to the world of anime cuisine.

To start off, we've got a notorious dish that seemed like a great place to begin: pineapple-curry fried rice from Food Wars. This dish requires us to toast and grind our spice mix for the curry. I'm using 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 spice blend will help keep that golden pineapple color. As we toast the whole lot until fragrant, with a little, tiny bit of smoke wisps into my waiting nose.

After they've cooled a bit, into the spice grinder they go, and 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 for the fresh stuff. We'll be using 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.

As I get 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! In the case of this sushi rice, after 25 minutes it emerges from the oven fluffy and ready to go. But also, it 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. Then we're 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 until everything is well combined, then 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 flavor, you're best off skipping the theatrics and dickin' right in.

I want to thank Crunchyroll for sponsoring this episode and introducing me to the world of anime cuisine. 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's your favorite? What's your favorite 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.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enHey what's up guys, welcome back to Binging with Babishwhere 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 Warsseemed 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 untilfragrant, 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 ovenfor 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 ovenfluffy and ready to go.But it also comes with the harrowing realisationthat 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 panand 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 pineappleand 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 oilin a well-seasoned wokover 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 oiland 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 throughalong 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 hourin the oven, steaming inside its pineapple package.I'm putting this guy in a 375°F ovenfor 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 thatwhile it adds a little bit more pineapple flavour, you're best offskipping the theatrics and dicking right in.Hey guys, I want to thank Crunchyroll for sponsoring this episode and introducing meto the world of anime, I've never really been into anime at all, and this is an exciting opportunity for me to learnabout 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.\n"