![]() ![]() Outside of Iron Chef, Sakai is the owner and head chef of the restaurant La Rochelle, in Aoyama. In an effort to learn from others, Sakai often tasted food opponents had prepared, or grabbed assistants and asked them questions after the battle was over. His daughter was teased in school whenever Sakai had lost - although this was a fairly rare occurrence. Upon his first loss, he had tried to be cheerful in explaining his loss to a younger chef who also owned his own restaurant, but his entire staff was mortified upon hearing the news. Like many chefs, Sakai did not take to losing very well. It was said that Sakai's son's employer had his employees frequent the restaurant as a show of support. However, as the show became more popular, chefs, judges, and fans became more supportive. Reactions to Sakai's appointment to Iron Chef were largely negative amongst chefs circles, largely because of the low stature of Iron Chef among chefs at the time which led many to believe would ruin their reputations as chefs, but others also believing that there was no possibility that any French dish would take less than one hour to prepare. It is often viewed by fans as the period when Iron Chef had the strongest Iron Chefs. The early era of Iron Chef saw Sakai being the "middle Iron Chef" along with Rokusaburo Michiba, a chef twelve years his senior, and Chen Kenichi, the youngest and least experienced of the three Iron Chefs at the time. The six-month tenure, as it turned out, turned into six years. Sakai agreed after being convinced by his staff, believing the impression that the show would air for another six months, giving him two or three appearances. Sakai was originally asked to be on Iron Chef by the producer Toshihiko Matsuo following the recommendation from hotel restaurateur Kihachi Kumagai. His formidable record in fish challenges led to fans of the show giving him the nickname, "Seafood Sakai". He is often described as the " Delacroix of French cuisine" because of the presentation of his dishes. His television trademark is a red French chef's costume he rises into Kitchen Stadium holding a quince in his hand. He went on to defeat the top chef in the world, Alain Passard, in the final Long-Gang Chicken battle. He was named the "King of Iron Chefs" after emerging victorious from the show's grand finale, a tournament involving all the active Iron Chefs. Sakai has the third best winning percentage of the Iron Chefs, trailing only his Iron Chef French predecessor, Yutaka Ishinabe and the first Iron Chef Japanese Rokusaburo Michiba. Sakai is best known as the second, final, and longest-serving Iron Chef French on the Japanese television show Iron Chef, first appearing at the beginning of 1994 (after Yutaka Ishinabe retired) and continuing to appear over the show's nine further seasons. Once the shrimp were done, I reserved then, cleared out the wok, added a little more oil and added in the sauce ingredients to cook out that raw tobanjang taste.Hiroyuki Sakai ( 坂井 宏行, Sakai Hiroyuki, born April 2, 1942) is a Japanese chef who specializes in French cuisine. The dish turned out fine when I finished it, but I was intrigued by Iron Chen’s use of the low temperature deep fry method. I had in mind to ‘crisp’ the coating of the shrimp. When I went and prepared it, I used a shade more oil than called for in Chen’s cookbook at about 60% max heat setting. The interesting thing I noticed from the Chen’s Iron Chef prawn battle was that he cooked the prepared prawns using a brief low temperature deep fry. (see: 24:11 through 26:50 and notice especially at 24:59-25:02 the addition of Heinz Ketchup, you can just make out the trademark Heniz ketchup label at 24:51-24-52) You can see Iron Chef Chen going through the process of preparing the chili shrimp here – separate 1 egg’s white from yolk, set both asideĮgg white worked into the seasoned shrimp 1 tablespoon tobanjang (I used Lee Kum Kee chili garlic sauce here)ģ. mince 4″ of scallion, set aside (about 1 1/2 T)Ī. So following Iron Chef’s chen’s ingredient list, I prepared the following items in the order listed –ġ. Once the actual cooking begins, the process goes lightening fast. So I set aside time for Sat, 12 Mar to make the dish.Īs a result of my experience of making Chen Kenichi’s mapo tofu, I realized that much of the work in doing such dishes was in the preparations and laying-out of the ingredients. After recently trying the full blown version of Chen Kenichi’s mapo tofu, I was VERY motivated to make the chili shrimp recipe from his book. I too enjoyed that dish and was intrigued enough to wonder how I could try his chili shrimp, short of flying to Tokyo. ![]() As you may recall, I made Iron Chef Chen’s mapo tofu recipe for my parents a few years ago that was well received (with the caveat that I had tone down the spiciness of the dish). ![]()
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