Tournament of Champions ™

Sake Harasu and Cauliflower Mushroom Donburi 

The randomizer generated:

Protein: Salmon belly; 

Produce: Cauliflower mushrooms; 

Equipment: Banana leaves; 

Style: White; 

Wild card: Ostrich egg

Jet Tila: "I think I'm gonna make a white donburi. Japanese donburi means meal over rice. I keep going to omelette over rice because that covers the egg and that covers a lot of white, and the protein's gonna be salmon." 

Jet leaned into technique to counter Kevin. 

Jet Tila: "Japanese food always has a high perception of refinement and is difficult to execute well. So I'm trying to show technique here against Kevin. I'm going to smoke some of this salmon in hay and banana." 

Jet Tila: "I take the salmon bellies, I run them over skewers. I add koji, which gives a ton of umami, and then I'm going to fire, smoke it over banana leaf and hay. Don't do this at home. Hot, very hot. To sear lightly and to penetrate with smoke." 

For the omelette, he wanted the salmon to finish gently. Jet Tila: "I still feel the salmon is under, kind of fatty, and it needs to cook a little bit. So I lay my salmon in there, and I really want kind of this loose, runny omelette." He used the cauliflower mushrooms in two ways, including a tempura crunch. 

Jet Tila: "I also have to make a crispy mushroom. I'm making tempura water, which is basically water and eggs. And once that comes together with the flour and the starch, it makes a really nice, crispy batter for the mushrooms." He made a sauce from the ostrich egg, knowing it would not stay fully white. 

Jet Tila: "I wanted one more moment for ostrich eggs. I'm basically going to make, like, an aioli style sauce using the cooked ostrich egg. You need egg yolk to emulsify. I take the egg, put it into a blender, add some white miso, and then I hit that with a little bit of yuzu kosho. It's coming out definitely more on the mustardy color. I have too high of a percentage of egg yolk, but it's too late to try to make this white. I'm always cooking for flavor. When I'm a judge, dishes that win are the most delicious no matter what, and that's how I cook." 

On plating: Jet Tila: "I start building the dish with the mushroom rice. I slide on the omelette with the salmon in it. I put a little bit of the miso yuzu kosho sauce on, and then I garnish with scallion. And I finished topping the dish with those white, crispy cauliflower mushroom bits. This is the dish I want to eat. I always cook from the belly." 

Voiceover: "This is a sake harasu, or salmon belly and cauliflower mushroom donburi. The salmon belly is skewered and smoked over the banana leaf. From there, the salmon belly was placed in the final cooking of an ostrich egg omelette. For the cauliflower mushroom, these were chopped, seasoned with koji, and then sauteed with butter just to get a little color but retain some of their whiteness. In addition, you'll find some as the tempura crunch."