Professional chef Yuji Haraguchi and home cook Daniel are swapping ingredients and hitting the kitchen to make a salmon dinner. We set Danial up with a whopping $513 worth of ingredients for his attempt at Yuji's luxury recipe. Meanwhile, a modest $21 worth of ingredients was sent back the other way to be elevated into something gourmet by our esteemed pro. Will Daniel be able to keep up with Yuji's pro recipe? Will Yuji be able to take a humble salmon fillet and turn it into something gourmet?
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 You know, this could be the hardest thing
00:02 I've done on the show, not gonna lie.
00:04 [laughs]
00:05 I am sweating.
00:06 - Hi, I'm Yuji.
00:09 I'm a professional chef.
00:11 These are my $513 salmon dinner ingredients.
00:15 - Hi, I'm Daniel.
00:18 I'm a home cook, and these are my $21
00:21 salmon dinner ingredients.
00:22 - Come back delicious.
00:26 - All right, let's do this.
00:27 I'm not scared, you're scared.
00:29 - Store-bought salmon.
00:30 - I can work with this.
00:31 [laughs]
00:34 - Right, let's do the whole fish, huh?
00:36 [upbeat music]
00:39 - So I was planning to make
00:41 roasted kombu cured sakura masu oyako donabe.
00:45 I had a whole sakura masu.
00:47 It is a wild cherry salmon from Japan.
00:50 - This is insane.
00:51 How'd you get this in here?
00:52 - To break down, cure in kombu, and then roast.
00:55 - Clams, mussels, clams.
00:57 - I had a money lot clam to make a special broth
00:59 with roasted sakura masu pon,
01:02 and then cook koshihikari rice in a donabe pot.
01:05 All served with pickled robanesco and watermelon radish.
01:08 - This looks like a cauliflower meets under the sea.
01:11 - And ikura shoyu zuke, soy marinated salmon roll.
01:14 - Oh, is this caviar?
01:16 - Made with kumquat.
01:17 - Tiny baby oranges.
01:18 - Aged shoyu and junmai sake.
01:21 - I'm happy whenever there's alcohol involved.
01:22 I'll be real with you.
01:23 - It was going to be very, very, very, very delicious.
01:27 - Daniel, don't mess it up.
01:29 - Damn.
01:29 - With Daniel's recipe,
01:30 I have a much, much simpler ingredients.
01:32 Stuff you might find in your pantry
01:34 or local grocery store.
01:35 With a little bit of a technique,
01:37 you can make it even better.
01:38 If I have to guess,
01:39 this whole thing will cost me probably $25.
01:42 [cash register dings]
01:43 [laughs]
01:44 Almost.
01:45 - I would say this all costs about $197.
01:49 [cash register dings]
01:50 - Five.
01:51 - This is half a thousand dollars.
01:53 Why do you trust me with this stuff?
01:55 [dramatic music]
01:57 I have Chef Yuji's recipe book here.
01:59 I'll be making roasted, kombu cured,
02:03 sakura masu oyakodonabe.
02:05 I have no idea what any of this means,
02:07 but there's a little bit of a framework here
02:09 that I might be able to follow,
02:11 which is exciting.
02:11 - Daniel, you're gonna be starting
02:13 with breaking down whole salmon.
02:15 - Bye bye now.
02:16 - We'll see you guys.
02:17 - You're gonna take off the head and the collars
02:19 from the rest of the body.
02:20 - Here we go.
02:21 - This special salmon came from a fish auction
02:25 from Japan.
02:26 - Thanks, Sammy.
02:26 - You're welcome.
02:28 This has been great.
02:29 - Take the body and just cut it from one side.
02:32 - So I wanna separate the actual edible, good meat parts
02:36 from the stabby in your throat bone parts a little deeper.
02:39 - All right, yeah.
02:40 - I was missing out on an inch and a half of meat in there.
02:44 - Meet the halfway, turn it.
02:46 - Completely botched off the rip.
02:47 This is, I had to make two cuts,
02:49 but the good news is you see all this meat
02:51 that would've been left behind
02:52 if I hadn't gone back and done that?
02:53 - I'm gonna do the same thing on the other side of the fish.
02:56 - And then cut it, meat in the middle.
02:57 - Does it matter if the fins still connected on this side?
03:00 Okay, cool, cool, cool.
03:01 No doubt, no doubt.
03:03 - And then the meat will come off.
03:04 Super easy.
03:05 - This is a mess.
03:07 [laughs]
03:09 I'm just so happy there's two sides to this fish.
03:11 I think this top half, complete learning experience for me.
03:15 Second half's gonna be so much better.
03:17 It's like it's never happened.
03:18 But this is still edible, so this'll be my half.
03:21 - After that, you're gonna do one more time
03:22 for the other side of the body.
03:25 - You know, life's all about second chances.
03:27 I have never concentrated on anything this hard,
03:29 I think, ever in my life.
03:30 I'm feeling better,
03:31 but it could still look pretty rough out there.
03:33 I'm not gonna flip it over until we're fully done.
03:35 We're already through on this side, see?
03:37 - At this point, you have two beautiful fillets of salmon.
03:40 - So they're ugly.
03:41 - And then one big middle bone.
03:43 - That was so hard.
03:45 I am sweating.
03:46 Do I have to clean 'em up?
03:47 Absolutely, but for my first time ever, not horrible.
03:51 Daniel was probably planning to make
03:54 some simple and healthy salmon dinner
03:56 with brown rice and vegetable and some simple sauce.
03:59 I'm gonna do something different.
04:00 I'm gonna be making salmon kakiage rice burger
04:04 with caramelized orange teriyaki sauce.
04:07 The salmon, the actual meat is gonna be inside a burger,
04:10 and then the skin is gonna be on the side
04:12 with other vegetables.
04:13 First, I'm gonna separate the salmon skin.
04:15 - I am gonna get these cleaned up,
04:16 get rid of these extra bones, no one wants that.
04:18 My goal here is just to get the bone off.
04:20 I don't wanna lose any meat here.
04:22 This really is like fish surgery.
04:24 There's like a whole row of little bones in here.
04:28 We have to like, tweeze these out.
04:30 There's so many of them.
04:32 I can totally see this being like a, you know,
04:33 a satisfying TikTok video or whatever.
04:35 I think I've got 'em all.
04:37 So now I have to portion two to three ounce pieces,
04:39 or fillets.
04:40 Fillets are filleting.
04:42 - I'm gonna cut this in half.
04:44 So I have this salmon skin,
04:46 two parchment papers on top and on the bottom,
04:49 and then another sheet tray to cover it
04:51 so that they don't curl up.
04:53 I'm gonna put this in the oven for about 10, 15 minutes
04:56 at 300.
04:57 - According to the cookbook,
04:58 the hard part is over now, I think,
05:01 as far as salmon goes.
05:02 - All you have to do is cure meat and then roast the bone.
05:05 Pretty much just adding a salt
05:07 to take the water out from the protein.
05:09 And I'm gonna put this on a paper towel
05:12 and then put it in the fridge for about a half hour
05:13 when I don't see any more salt on top of the salmon.
05:17 And then if I see the paper is wet,
05:19 that's another sign that the curing is finished.
05:21 - I'm gonna throw some plastic wrap down.
05:24 I'm gonna throw some kombu on this bad boy.
05:27 - Rest that fillet on top of the dry kelp,
05:30 and then the water will naturally come out from the fillet,
05:34 and then the flavor from kombu
05:36 would actually penetrate back into the fillet.
05:39 So it's a exchange of water and umami.
05:42 - So these are curing now, allegedly.
05:45 - Put in the fridge and then let it cure.
05:47 - For like 12 whole hours.
05:50 - So my crispy salmon skin is done,
05:52 so I'm gonna use this for my side dishes.
05:55 - All right, so I gotta get the stock.
05:57 - Idea of this donabe dish is you separate the whole fish
06:01 into bones and fillet.
06:03 Bones becomes a really nice, delicious broth
06:05 that goes into rice,
06:07 and then the meat will go back on top of it at the end.
06:10 This philosophy is called mottai nai in Japanese,
06:14 which means no waste.
06:15 - This broth is gonna be for cooking the rice,
06:17 so the rice is gonna get super flavorful.
06:19 - Roast the salmon bone first.
06:21 - Gonna throw this into the oven.
06:23 It's like 450 for a couple minutes.
06:25 - Adding salmon bones into the broth is really good,
06:28 but to make really good broth in general,
06:31 you wanna add at least two different types of ingredients.
06:35 - Clams will go in.
06:36 - And then you're gonna bring cold water into a pot
06:39 with manila clam and then the kombu together,
06:42 and then you're gonna slowly cook both ingredients.
06:46 - They say any watch pot never boils,
06:49 but I've gotta watch this one
06:51 'cause I've never seen a clam open under water before, so.
06:55 I don't wanna miss that and overcook the clams.
06:57 - So you wanna make sure that the meat is tender
06:59 and flavorful, so don't overcook.
07:01 Within that first half hour,
07:03 the clam will open up slowly.
07:05 As soon as they open, you wanna take it out.
07:08 - Oh, one popped open.
07:09 Bam, okay.
07:10 - After 30 minutes or so,
07:11 all the clams should be open.
07:13 - Is everything, is everyone, everyone's out?
07:14 Cool, let me grab the bones from the oven.
07:17 - So I got this brown rice from Daniel.
07:19 I'm making salmon kakiage rice burger,
07:21 so I have to cook this brown rice
07:23 and then make this into a bun.
07:25 The first step, it starts from washing it.
07:27 You're just gonna remove some of the dirt
07:30 that comes with the rice
07:31 and also makes it a little bit less starchy.
07:33 Brown rice has still bran attached to the white rice,
07:37 so it takes more water to be able to be cooked.
07:40 Setting to brown, and then this smart rice cooker
07:44 is gonna do everything for me.
07:45 [bell ringing]
07:47 [humming]
07:49 - Hell yeah.
07:50 - Woo-hoo!
07:52 Check that out.
07:53 So like 15, 20, let this boil,
07:55 and then I'm gonna take the kombu out.
07:57 - After that, you're gonna keep the temperature medium heat,
07:59 and then you're gonna bring the roasted salmon bone
08:02 onto the broth, and then keep for another half hour.
08:04 - I'm just gonna watch it.
08:05 - When the broth is roasted,
08:07 the color of the broth will be more brown
08:10 because of the roasted bone.
08:11 - This smells phenomenal.
08:13 - Strain the broth.
08:14 Make sure the broth is cooled off completely.
08:16 - Woo, what a process.
08:18 - My brown rice is finished.
08:20 I'm gonna make this into the shape of a hamburger bun.
08:23 I have this plastic wrap, and then take this rice.
08:26 I actually never use brown rice, but it looks great.
08:30 - You don't eat brown rice a lot?
08:32 - Not at all, but maybe I will after this.
08:35 Rice burger buns are ready, and I go in the fridge.
08:40 Ikura shoyu zuke, salmon roe marinade.
08:43 - Ikura is a salmon roe.
08:45 - Whoa, this is phenomenal, and the flavor's unreal, wow.
08:49 - I'm gonna throw some of the kombu in here.
08:53 Then I'm gonna put the roe in there.
08:56 - Add a peel of kumquat.
08:57 It's gonna add a really nice aroma.
08:59 - Is it even coming out?
09:00 How the hell do you get the rind of this thing?
09:04 It looks like this tough skin.
09:06 - Ah.
09:08 - He's gonna marinate that with soy sauce,
09:11 mirin, and sake.
09:13 - And this looks like an intense,
09:15 Simon, look at this creature on here.
09:17 It's like a, what is it, like a warlock or like a yeti?
09:20 Ah, it's called the yeti sake.
09:23 Always have to try it, 'cause you know,
09:26 if you don't try it, how are you supposed to know
09:29 what it tastes like?
09:30 Good stuff.
09:32 Equal parts mirin and sake.
09:33 Two tablespoons total here.
09:35 I'm gonna try and be super gentle here,
09:37 'cause I don't wanna break the roe.
09:39 - Mirin actually is a preservative.
09:41 We can't preserve it for a long time.
09:42 Otherwise, the fish will go bad very quickly.
09:44 - And that is my ikura shoyu zuke,
09:47 or my salmon roe marinade.
09:49 - Daniel was planning to make some kind of a marinade
09:52 for the salmon with combination of these ingredients.
09:55 I'm gonna use them to make something more special.
09:58 Caramelized orange teriyaki sauce.
10:00 And then that's gonna be great for my burger.
10:02 So I'm gonna just slowly heat up the sugar
10:05 until they all melt and then becomes almost like a caramel.
10:08 It takes about like five, 10 minutes.
10:10 And meanwhile, I'm going to use this orange
10:13 and then just cut a few.
10:14 I'll save this for my side dish.
10:16 And I'm gonna use this for my sauce.
10:19 The edge gets cooked much, much quicker,
10:21 so I'm trying to mix it evenly.
10:23 Turn it off.
10:24 And then I'm going to add orange.
10:27 Peel the soy sauce.
10:28 And also vinegar.
10:30 The heat is off.
10:34 My sauce is done and ready for my burger.
10:36 - Time to make some rice.
10:38 - The rice that Daniel's using
10:39 is called koshihikari rice from Japan.
10:42 Just a higher quality and it has really nice sweet flavor.
10:45 We're gonna make this koshihikari rice even more special
10:48 by cooking it with a special broth.
10:51 - Still smells like the best thing ever.
10:53 - Cooking rice in donabe is my favorite way
10:56 of cooking rice.
10:57 It's quicker and more flavorful.
10:59 - I'm gonna rinse all this stuff off.
11:00 - Make sure it is an equal amount by volume.
11:03 So you have one cup of rice, add one cup of broth,
11:07 and then cover the pot.
11:09 Turn the heat really high.
11:11 - I've got this rippin', it's gonna be pretty hot.
11:13 - As soon as the steam comes out,
11:14 you turn the heat very low,
11:16 but make sure that the tiny bit of steam is keep coming out.
11:19 You're gonna keep that stage for about 15 minutes.
11:22 After that, you're gonna turn off the heat completely
11:25 so you shouldn't see any more steam coming out.
11:27 And then you're gonna rest that for another 15 minutes.
11:29 - Please be good, please be good.
11:31 - So now I'm going to finish my rice buns,
11:34 ready to be seared with sesame oil.
11:36 I wanna make sure it's very crispy.
11:38 And then I'm gonna do another step of searing.
11:44 So I'm gonna take the excess oils off
11:47 and then I'm gonna cook them
11:49 until they get really, really crispy.
11:51 Great, that's it.
11:54 My rice buns are ready.
11:56 So I got these basic vegetable from Daniel.
11:58 I'm gonna be making broccoli, carrot, orange namul.
12:02 It is a pickle of vegetables together with sesame oil.
12:05 Daniel's also gonna be making some pickled vegetables.
12:08 - Never pickled before,
12:09 but I think it's pretty straightforward.
12:11 I'm gonna go ahead and get started
12:12 by peeling these radishes.
12:13 - So the carrot, I'm gonna just take the skin off.
12:16 The skin is gonna be used for my burger.
12:19 And then the core inside of the carrot
12:21 is gonna be for my namul.
12:23 - I'm gonna give these guys a little choppy chop now.
12:27 - And broccoli, the stalk is gonna be for my burger.
12:31 And then the top part is gonna be for my namul.
12:34 - I'm gonna peel the butt off of this thing.
12:37 Let's do like a Romanesco steak.
12:40 And then from here, we cut the inside.
12:43 Nice.
12:45 - So I'm gonna be saving the carrot skin
12:46 and then the broccoli stem for my burger later.
12:49 This is the combination of carrot and then broccoli top part.
12:53 - I'm gonna use these to make broccoli, carrot,
12:57 orange namul.
12:58 - Equal parts sugar and salt.
13:00 - It doesn't really take that much time to pickle too,
13:03 so it's really nice technique to add a quick pickle
13:06 into this donabe dish.
13:08 - Just salt it, toss it.
13:10 - I have this orange leftover from my teriyaki sauce.
13:13 I'm gonna actually make a little segment
13:15 and then add it into my namul.
13:18 And then rice vinegar and then sesame oil.
13:21 And then that should do it.
13:23 - So this is my broccoli, carrot, and orange namul.
13:26 - So this is going to be the curing process
13:29 for the vegetables.
13:31 And I love how some of those little like mountainous
13:33 looking things from the Romanesco
13:34 are actually intact in there.
13:36 It's gonna be a really cool touch at the end.
13:38 - So I'm going to start prepping for my burger.
13:41 It is salmon kakiage.
13:43 Salmon's been curing for more than like half hour.
13:46 It's more glossy, the meat is a bit tighter.
13:48 In my opinion, taking the moisture out from especially fish
13:52 is very important process.
13:53 So the skin, I'm gonna just keep it as it is.
13:56 Then I'm going to cut this in a little bit similar shape
13:59 of real like ribbons.
14:00 Next thing is I'm going to start cutting the salmon.
14:04 Then I'm going to make batter for the kakiage tempura.
14:12 Usually it's flour, but I got cornstarch.
14:16 I think cornstarch usually will make it
14:18 a little bit more crispier finish compared to flour.
14:22 So I got everything ready to make this kakiage.
14:25 And then the next step is to fry them.
14:27 - My salmon is done curing now, which is great.
14:30 It's been like 12 full hours.
14:32 - You're gonna be cooking this salmon in a skewer.
14:35 You're gonna hang the skewer onto some kind of pot.
14:38 That will take excess water out completely.
14:41 The entire fish is gonna be very juicy and crunchy.
14:44 You're gonna cook it in an oven for about eight to 10 minutes
14:47 - At like 500 degrees on this almost like makeshift
14:51 rotisserie thing.
14:53 Fingers crossed.
14:54 Sexy, sexy salmon.
15:00 - So I got everything I need, hot oil,
15:02 and kakiage ingredients and batter ready.
15:05 So I'm gonna start frying.
15:07 So I'm gonna just loosen up the batter
15:09 because it's with the cornstarch,
15:10 it's always sinks to the bottom.
15:13 Ingredient, shape of the kakiage needs to be rounded
15:18 and then go like this.
15:21 Okay, this looks good.
15:22 And I'm gonna use this so they stick together.
15:26 And then, want to have like a really, really crunchy texture.
15:31 And this is actually perfect.
15:33 And this is done.
15:34 My kakiage is ready.
15:35 - Time to get to plating.
15:38 Everything smells so good.
15:40 First off, the rice.
15:41 Oh, nice.
15:42 I'm gonna build the plate together in the donabe.
15:45 I think that'd look really cute.
15:46 Get one of these skewers.
15:48 We are gonna do our best here.
15:50 Now, I'm gonna put some of these clams around.
15:53 I'm gonna go in with my pickled veggies.
15:55 There is a little bit of the roe
15:57 that I'm gonna top the actual salmon with.
15:59 Or some kumquat.
16:00 I'm gonna actually slice this and use this as a garnish.
16:02 And last but not least is a little bit of mint.
16:07 And this is my take on Chef Yuji's salmon recipe.
16:10 A lot of steps that went into this.
16:12 So I am hoping that it's all worth it in the end
16:16 and it tastes really good.
16:17 I cannot wait to see what he did with mine.
16:18 I'm sure it's gonna blow whatever I had planned
16:21 out of the water.
16:22 - So time to assemble my burger.
16:24 I have everything I need here,
16:26 but I realized that my buns needs more color.
16:29 So I have this blowtorch.
16:31 [blowtorch hissing]
16:34 Bun on the bottom.
16:38 So originally I was going to use this crispy salmon skin
16:42 for my side namul dish,
16:44 but now I realize it's gonna be great inside a burger.
16:48 Kakiage.
16:49 Orange zest is actually a pre-taste,
16:51 so I'm gonna actually use it as part of the filling.
16:53 Caramelized orange teriyaki.
16:56 Side dish.
16:58 Here's my take on Daniel's salmon recipe.
17:00 Salmon kakiage rice burger.
17:03 - What's up, dude?
17:08 - Hey, how's it going, Daniel? - Good to see you.
17:09 - Good to see you.
17:10 - This was, this was a lot.
17:12 This is the process, man.
17:13 This is crazy.
17:14 You put me through the wringer.
17:15 - Ooh.
17:16 - Wow!
17:18 Just learned a lot.
17:20 - How do you usually do it?
17:21 - Well, I was gonna put this in the middle,
17:23 and then I was gonna just put everything more evenly,
17:25 but the way that you plate it is actually very nice.
17:28 - You wanna try it?
17:29 - Yes. - Yeah?
17:30 - Take it in and then try to get--
17:32 - A little bit of everything?
17:33 - Yeah, a little bit of everything, as much as possible.
17:35 Mm.
17:38 That is delicious.
17:40 - So good.
17:41 - It's so good.
17:42 - It's crazy, too, how much flavor the clams
17:44 can part into the rice. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
17:45 - Into the rice, right?
17:46 Yeah. - Yeah.
17:46 - I never think to do that for my own broth, you know?
17:49 But now that you've showed me,
17:50 I'm like, I can't go back to the whole broth.
17:53 - I think the presentation was so good.
17:55 [laughing]
17:56 I mean, I knew taste was gonna be good,
17:58 but presentation made it even better, I think.
18:01 - What did you do with mine?
18:02 - So I wanted to make something completely different.
18:07 I always had this idea of making a rice burger.
18:10 Salmon skewer with vegetables, cut things.
18:13 - Should we dig in?
18:15 - Yeah? - Yeah.
18:15 - Cheers, man.
18:16 [laughing]
18:19 - Mm.
18:21 - Oh my God. - Nice.
18:22 - Yeah.
18:23 - Dude. - What?
18:25 - The rice has such a nice texture.
18:27 The salmon's amazing.
18:29 - I'm actually surprised myself, yeah.
18:31 - It's like a caramel sauce.
18:32 - Mm, veggies are great.
18:34 Veggies are great.
18:35 You gotta cut the cameras, I'm about to go.
18:37 [laughing]
18:37 I'm gonna go off on this thing.
18:39 You're the best.
18:41 - No, you're the best.
18:42 [laughing]