Cooking rice in your restaurant? Lionel Beccat would never dare. This chef, originally from Marseilles, nevertheless trained for sixteen years in the legendary Troisgros house. In Tokyo, his Esquisse restaurant, nestled on the ninth floor of a tower in the very chic Ginza district, has two stars in the Michelin Guide. Only here, “he would need another twenty years of apprenticeship to dare to use it for the Japanese, he confesses. You have to respect the flavor of the rice because it is enough on its own. It is the taste of calm: when you feel it, nothing is more serious”. From a French point of view, it is always surprising to note the attention and respect of the Japanese towards this cereal, a national treasure. Here it is a simple accompaniment, a popular dish, even a decidedly poor one. “Here, it’s a dish on its own. And even more: it’s a symbol, a religion, it’s what kept the nation alive in troubled times. Rice, in Japan, is more sacred than the emperor. »
A fascinating cereal
What better place then to learn the secrets of this fascinating cereal? This is the purpose of the journey that brought Anne-Sophie Pic, the most starred chef in the world, from Valence to Osaka on a sunny October morning. It had been ten years since she had returned to this country where she had studied in 1991. There she had discovered “its rituals, its Japanese baths, its tea ceremonies, but also the freshness and smoke of the dashi broth, the bitterness of the ‘matcha’. Flavors that would later deeply imbue his cuisine. For this return to the sources of his inspiration, we cross together the magnificent rice fields of Nara, the ancient imperial city at the foot of the Miwa hill, from which the water flows purest of the archipelago. First lesson: rice is first of all about water. Whoever feeds the cereal, whoever cooks it, must be as kind as possible. Let’s examine the very small plots of the Okamoto family farm. No street lamps around: only the light of the moon can illuminate the cereal without attacking its amino acids.It is here that Yosuke Suga, a disciple of Joël Robuchon and chef of Sugalabo in Tokyo, gets his supplies, voted best restaurant in the world by the ranking The Liste in 2019. Wearing a pair of boots and armed with a scythe, he begins, with Anne-Sophie Pic, picking the rice that they will cook together the next day.
©Maison Krug
Some producers prefer to let the rice rest for a few days, in the dark, to let it recover from the “trauma” of uprooting: a Shinto and millennial approach to life which, in the West, also appeals to a whole new generation of cooks and producers looking for alternatives to mass agriculture. In the same spirit, Yosuke Suga and Anne-Sophie Pic have sublimated this magnificent rice in a thousand ways as part of a four-handed dinner: six dishes designed in food-wine pairing with Krug champagnes, because rice is as noble as this wine envied around the world (and driving the Japanese crazy). It is because the texture of the cooked rice, its melting and gourmand side, marries perfectly with the effervescence of the champagne. Thus, the bar with caviar, champagne and powdered rose, Anne-Sophie Pic’s signature dish made in homage to her father, is cooked in sake lees, the lactic residue from the fermentation of rice alcohol. “The floral notes of the rose respond to the notes of the dried white flowers of the Krug while the bubbles of the champagne contrast with the softness of the sake lees. Yosuke Suga, for his part, has imagined an extraordinarily melting chicken, cooked in a crust of salt and rice straw, stuffed with rice pilaf, a dream dish for Christmas meals of which he offers us an exclusive simplified recipe. But if the toasted notes of rice pilaf and the aromas of porcini mushrooms go wonderfully with champagne, you can touch ecstasy even with a simple bowl of perfectly cooked rice because, as a Japanese monk once said, “nothing in terms of emotions can not exceed a bowl of white rice piping hot on a freezing winter evening.
©Maison Krug
esquissetokyo.com/info anne-sophie-pic.com sugalabo.com
Lionel Beccat’s advice
“In France, where tap water has a very low PH, it’s better to sacrifice a bottle of Volvic to cook rice. Water that is too hard will cause the shell of the grain to contract and it won’t be able to penetrate it. Until it breaks and then the rice is mashed potatoes. »
Lionel Beccat’s recipe at home
“I have excellent rice delivered to me from the coast of Niigata. When it’s hot, I let it rest. I like to add a little bitter Sicilian olive oil and grate it on top of the homemade bottarga. »
For perfect cooking without any equipment
ingredients : 250 g of rice, 1/2 tsp. coffee salt, 2 bottles of Volvic (or 2 liters of filtered water in a jug)
Preparation 1. Wash the rice in three successive baths of Volvic or filtered water. For the last bath, let the rice rest for 30 minutes in a volume of water equal to five times the volume of the rice. It will cook easier and its flavor will be more delicate.
2. In a saucepan, add the rinsed rice, 300ml of Volvic, the salt, mix lightly.
3. Bring to a boil, then cover tightly and immediately reduce the heat to low. Leave to cook, without ever opening the lid, for 18 minutes.
4. Remove the pan from the heat, let it rest for 15 minutes. Uncover and fluff the rice with a fork.
Yosuke Suga’s holiday dish
Salt-crusted poultry stuffed with rice pilaf, porcini mushrooms and foie gras, yellow wine sauce
©Maison Krug
INGREDIENTS FOR 4 PEOPLE
(Provide kitchen scale) 1 free range poultry weighing 1.4kg, 200g strainers.
THE SALT CRUST 1 kg of coarse salt, 1.1 kg of T55 flour, 310 g of egg white, 35 g of rice straw.
YELLOW WINE SAUCE 250 g of carrots, 250 g of mushrooms, 30 g of butter, 240 cl of yellow wine, 500 g of chicken stock, 500 g of cream, 50 g of roux, salt, pepper, 5 g of curry.
RICE PILAF 160 g of Camargue rice, 15 g of butter, 20 g of sliced onions, 230 g of chicken stock, thyme, salt, pepper.
THE JOKE Pilaf rice, 60 g of cooked chestnuts, 45 g of foie gras, 60 g of porcini mushrooms, flat leaf parsley, butter, salt, pepper.
PREPARATION
SALT CRUST PASTA Put the ingredients in a bowl of the robot with 370 cl of water, blend in the blender. When a ball forms at the end of the hook, it’s ready. Let the dough rest for 1 hour.
YELLOW WINE SAUCE Slice the carrots and Parisian mushrooms, sauté them in butter in a saucepan. Wet with yellow wine and chicken broth. When the preparation has reduced by half, add the cream and cook over low heat for 15 minutes. Strain through a sieve, thicken with the roux and season with salt, pepper and curry.
RICE PILAF Preheat the oven to 200°C. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the onions and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring. Add the rice and continue cooking for 2-3 minutes, stirring. Add the chicken broth and thyme. Bring to the boil, cover and continue cooking in the oven at 200°C for about 20 minutes.
THE JOKE Fry the chestnuts, foie gras and porcini mushrooms cut into 7 mm cubes in butter in a pan. Add rice pilaf, sauté again. Season with salt and pepper at the end of cooking before adding the chopped flat leaf parsley.
POULTRY Stuff the poultry with stuffing, tie it with string. Wrap it with the colander. Spread some of the batter onto a baking sheet and place the poultry on top of it before covering it completely with the batter. Bake at 180°C for 1 hour. At the end of cooking, leave the poultry for another 30 minutes in the turned off oven. Slice the chicken, serve with the stuffing and yellow wine sauce.
