In 2009, he published a book called "The Skill and Heart of a Great Master", in which Jiro Ono, Kanejiro Kanemoto, and Tetsuya Saotome were called the three gods of cuisine. This is Noda Iwa, a century-old store that has been passed down for five generations. ”

After listening to Emi's introduction, SC Johnson stood at the door of the store for more than 200 years, and today came to visit the last national treasure-level craftsman, the god of eels.

When he was five or six years old, he went to the market with his father to learn how to pick eels, and has been working for 80 years. The mantra that circulates in the industry is three years of shaving fish, eight years of skewering fish, and one life of barbecue, which is a true portrayal of Kanejiro Kanemoto's life.

At the age of 88, he still kills eels and roasts eels every day, senses the strength of the fire in front of the oven, and adjusts the position of the eel skewers.

It seems that the three old men are planning to die of exhaustion in the kitchen?

Walking into the gate, the first floor is the entrance, and the second floor has individual seats and Japanese-style private rooms, which have been renovated and still retain the earth-made style of Hida Takayama ancient folk houses, just like the soup house in Spirited Away.

When you enter the private room, you will have a cup of tea first, and when you come to a century-old store, it is a big waste not to appreciate the utensils. The tea soup is green and clear, and the fragrant matcha is very suitable as an opening. A restaurant that is good enough, even down to the smallest detail.

Eel rice can be eaten all year round, but the eels are the fattest in autumn and winter. And a bowl of eel rice is also divided into two genres: Kanto Flow, which is used to kill eels with a back-open type, steamed first and then grilled, with rich fat and fragrant, and melts in the mouth.

Kansai flow, kill eels with belly open, directly charcoal grilled, crispy skin, firm meat. Kanemoto is the master of the Kanto Stream, and his most famous signature is the Kabayaki eel.

Picking up the menu, compared to Ono's conservatism, Kanemoto is still quite trendy. Created many new eel dishes, and even created ways to eat eel with red wine and caviar.

Choose the luxury package: a bowl of soul, Noda Iwa. I heard that Noda Iwa uses natural eel from Kasuminoura in Ibaraki Prefecture, and it is all a matter of luck to buy this ingredient, and it may only be six or seven kilograms when it is scarce.

Even Kanemoto himself said: That feeling can only be described as loneliness!

Eel jelly, the signature appetizer, is an eel jelly that is stewed and condensed with gelatinous gravy, like crystal clear amber.

Pick up a piece, and there is also a small piece of eel meat sealed inside, seasoned with yuzu vinegar, refreshing and appetizing, and the concentrated fish jelly has a sweet and mellow taste and high freshness.

Serve a food box, and when you open the lid, you can smell the aroma of charcoal grilling, braised eel.

The aim is to taste the original flavor without any sauces, just salt, soy sauce and wasabi, which are dipped according to the guest's preference.

This kind of roast can only be made by the top restaurants with the best ingredients and craftsmanship, and if it is not handled well, it is easy to leave an earthy smell, but Noda Iwa's eel has no such problem at all, and the flavor is quiet and the degree of fat retention is just right.

This is the true meaning of Kanto-style kabayaki eel, which follows the fixed process of grilling, steaming, and roasting, and it is directly roasted in one step, and you can also see the customer. The taste is more elegant, dry, and original, and it feels like eating sashimi......

SC Johnson's steamed tea bowl is the most surprising, and the brown steamed egg absorbs a lot of broth, which is naturally delicious. The toppings are even more luxurious, seaweed and ginkgo seeds, and large pieces of eel meat are added to enhance the theme, and a whole row of shark fins is even excavated!

The most delicious thing is the eel liver skewers, which are a gift for offal lovers, which can process the liver without the slightest fishy smell, and the taste is not woody, juicy and full of elasticity.

The finale dish is still eel, and it is sent in a fine food box, and I heard that it is a valuable Wajima lacquerware. The eel, soaked in sauce, is grilled to give it an elegant bright red color.

In contrast to other restaurants that like to claim to have a unique secret sauce, here it is generous to admit that there are only two seasonings: mirin and soy sauce.

SC Johnson picks up a piece of eel, puts it in his mouth, and his eyes light up, what a high-end taste!

Since it is steamed first and then baked, the excess fat is eliminated, and it is fragrant but not greasy. What's even more rare is that it has a fluffy and soft texture that is firm and elastic at the same time, and it will not break when you take it with chopsticks, but it will quickly loosen when you put it in your mouth......

The eel is soft and delicate, the sauce is rich and rich, and it penetrates well into every inch of texture, and you can't help but sigh that this is the real killer feature of the century-old restaurant.

The sauce is macerated countless times a day to enhance the flavor of the eel and feed back to the flavor of the fish, and the 150-year-old batter produces a wonderful taste that no spice can replace.

SC Johnson picks up a piece of rice and tastes it with heart, the rice grains are plump and elastic, and the eel sauce is a real treat.

"This is Koshihikari, known as the king of rice, who monopolizes all the high-end restaurants!" said Megumi with a smile on her face, "Only during the New Year's holidays are we willing to buy some home, the grains are full, the color is crystal clear, and the aftertaste is sweet." ”

"I heard that this kind of rice grows in the mountains where the sun shines during the day and suddenly turns cold at night, and there is a big difference between cold and warm, and it is naturally exposed to the sun and dried after harvesting. The particles are small, hard, starchy, rich in fat, and highly absorbent, making it ideal for making sushi. ”

Johnson nodded, Ono must have used this kind of rice, although it is made into vinegared rice, but the taste is the same.

One of the most difficult aspects of Japanese food is cooking. There are many processes, strict requirements, and difficulty in proportion, and a little negligence will be wasted.

The most important thing is to absorb water before cooking, and leave the washed rice in a moisturizing state for a certain period of time, 30 minutes in summer and 60 minutes in winter, so that it can fully absorb water.

The main component of rice is starch, the combination of starch molecules is very dense and strong, and the water absorption is weak, if the water can not penetrate the rice core, it will make the surface of the rice grain gelatinized and the rice core is not ripe when cooking. However, if the water absorption time is too long, the rice grains are too soft, and it is easy to erode after cooking, and the dough cannot be kneaded and formed.

The master controls the heat with all his experience, and the reason why thousands of sushi restaurants have different tastes and unique characteristics is fully reflected in the treatment of the heat.

Heat, boil, steam, stew, burn five procedures, heat and time vary from person to person, steady heat heating, strong fire boiling, medium heat steaming, fierce fire fumigation, closed fire simmering......

Ono once said that in the process of stabilizing the fire, listen attentively, and immediately turn the fire to the maximum when you hear the sound of fluttering in the kettle, which is called strong fire boiling and making the rice grains stand up.

Under the fire, the temperature in the kettle rises sharply, and soon reaches the boiling point, at which time the rice will jump in all directions and gather and disperse, from the original horizontal lying to the upright state, and all stand up.

After 15 minutes, remove the bucket from the lid, pour in a glass of special sake before turning off the heat, and simmer for another 15 minutes until the rice grains absorb the aroma and fully expand.

After cooling for 20 minutes, begin to chop and mix. Put the rice upside down in a shallow-bottomed cypress barrel, which must be cypress, because it absorbs water, and the metal plastic barrel is absolutely not good.

The hemispherical rice falls into the bucket, the bottom and the edge of the wall are golden brown, the scorched surface is removed with gauze, and each grain of rice is required to stand upright, which means that the pot of rice is basically qualified.

Cut the rice balls with a wooden ladle, quickly break them up, turn them, stir them well until the rice grains are evenly distributed, and finally wave a large fan to cool them.

The grains are crystal clear, plump and dripping, like pearls out of the water. The grains of food are in the mouth, and the fragrance is overflowing.

It seems that a simple single bowl of rice, how much effort to condense, how much work and hard sweat are soaked, thinking of a poem, Johnson can't help but sigh:

On the afternoon of hoeing day, sweat drops into the soil.

Who knows that Chinese food is hard work.