Alice Nakiri Quotes

“Ah! This isn't raw egg at all! The egg white is actually a thinned seawater gelée (jelly)...
... and the yolk is salmon roe firmed in a gelatin!
The salmon roe pop crisply, filling the mouth with a rich saltiness...
... that is wrapped up in the mild smoothness of the gelée!"
"Oh! This looks like it's just a hard-boiled egg...
but the egg white is really a white asparagus mousse! And the yolk is hollandaise sauce made from real egg yolks!
The heavy richness of the hollandaise is perfectly balanced with the mild bitterness of the asparagus for an exquisite flavor!"
"Then what is this? It looks like an egg in its shell...."
"Oh, this?"
"She punctured it!"
"It's a milkshake. You drink it through the straw, like this. Once I removed the inside of the egg, I filled it with a milkshake made with milk, eggs and caramel."
"Mm!It's delicious! Its mellow sweetness and clean aftertaste bring to mind the freshness of an early morning!"
"And that is everything! All together, I call it...
..."The Three-Faces of-an-Egg Breakfast.""
What an utterly surprising dish! Each piece has an exquisite taste completely unlike what you would expect!
On this one plate...
... are miniature representations of...
... the flavors of the ocean, the forest and the earth”
― Yuto Tsukuda, 食戟のソーマ 5 [Shokugeki no Souma 5]

“HEY, LADY? IS THAT PRETTY DECORATION ON THE CURRY... REALLY A PIECE OF CHOCOLATE?!"
"How is that even possible?!"
"Do you see its delicate, complex design? And they're mass-producing it?! It even has a colorful swirl pattern on it!"
"Not even a professional could manage something like this!"
"It wasn't hard, really. I just printed those chocolates using a 3-D Food Printer."
"A 3-D Printer? Oh, I've heard of those!"
"But I didn't know you could use it to print food!"
"Dark chocolate makes a perfect accent to curry, y'know. Take some 80 percent cacao chocolate, add a dash of curry spices to it and then print it out in totally cute designs with a 3-D Printer! Put it on top of some piping hot curry, and it will start to melt, adding a rich, colorful undertone to the flavor of the dish!"
"Papa, I want some! Buy me that!"
"Sure thing! Your papa wants to try it too!"
"Mm! The curry itself smells so good I could melt! But then they go and add that beautiful chocolate topping?!"
"Man, Totsuki students are amazing!"
They like it.
"That chocolate is, like, all bonus. It adds a colorful touch and a little sweet scent... without affecting the curry spices you balanced so carefully.”
― Yuto Tsukuda, 食戟のソーマ 16 [Shokugeki no Souma 16]

“At first glance, it looks like some kind of ice cream...
...!
It isn't sweet. I see.
It's salmon ice cream, but made without sweetener."
"He made salmon into ice cream?!
But how?!"
"The Cryogenic Grinder."
"Ah! That's Alice Nakiri for you. Got it in one guess.
I pureed some salmon with a blender and then froze the resulting paste, putting it through the Cryogenic Grinder.
The high-powered blades of the grinder minced the paste into a fluffy and silky soft ice cream.”
― Yuto Tsukuda, 食戟のソーマ 19 [Shokugeki no Souma 19]

“Well then, first would be the abalone and sea urchin- the bounty of the sea!
Ah, I see! This foam on top is kombu seaweed broth that's been whipped into a mousse!"
"Mm! I can taste the delicate umami flavors seeping into my tongue!"
"The fish meat was aged for a day wrapped in kombu. The seaweed pulls just enough of the moisture out of the meat, allowing it to keep longer, a perfect technique for a bento that needs to last. Hm! Next looks to be bonito. ...!" What rich, powerful umami!"
Aha! This is the result of several umami components melding together. The glutamic acid in the kombu from the previous piece is mixing together in my mouth with the inosinic acid in the bonito!
"And, like, I cold aged this bonito across two days. Aging fish and meats boosts their umami components, y'know. In other words, the true effect of this bento comes together in your mouth... as you eat it in order from one end to the other."
"Next is a row... that looks to be made entirely from vegetables. But none of them use a single scrap of seaweed. The wrappers around each one are different vegetables sliced paper-thin!"
"Right! This bento totally doesn't go for any heavy foods."
"Next comes the sushi row that practically cries out that it's a main dish... raw cold-aged beef sushi!" Th-there it is again! The powerful punch of umami flavor as two components mix together in my mouth!
"Hm? Wait a minute. I understand the inosinic acid comes from the beef... but where is the glutamic acid?"
"From the tomatoes."
"Tomatoes? But I don't see any..."
"They're in there. See, I first put them in a centrifuge. That broke them down into their component parts- the coloring, the fiber, and the jus. I then filtered the jus to purify it even further. Then I put just a few drops on each piece of veggie sushi."
"WHAT THE HECK?!"
"She took an ingredient and broke it down so far it wasn't even recognizable anymore? Can she even do that?"
Appliances like the centrifuge and cryogenic grinder are tools that were first developed to be used in medicine, not cooking. Even among pro chefs, only a handful are skilled enough to make regular use of such complex machines! Who would have thought a high school student was capable of mastering them to this degree!
"And last but not least we have this one. It's sea bream with some sort of pink jelly...
... resting on top of a Chinese spoon."
That pink jelly was a pearl of condensed soup stock! Once it popped inside my mouth...
... it mixed together with the sea bream sushi until it tasted like-
"Sea bream chazuke!”
― Yuto Tsukuda, 食戟のソーマ 8 [Shokugeki no Souma 8]

“I, like, added curry spices to the tomatoes and then firmed it with sodium alginate.
Then there's the mousse I made with powdered, freeze-dried foie gras blended with turmeric. The white dollop in the middle is a puree of potatoes and six different types of cheese.
Once your mouth has thoroughly cooled from those items, you should totally try the piecrust arches.
Oh! I flash froze it first, so it should have a very light, fluffy texture.
I kneaded coriander and a few other select spices into the pie dough. It'll cleanse your palate and give your tongue a break.
This dish is all about "Thermal Sense," y'know.
Molecular gastronomy teaches about the various contrasting temperature sensations foods and spices have.
I took those theories and put them together into a single dish.”
― Yuto Tsukuda, 食戟のソーマ 7 [Shokugeki no Souma 7]

“I will never forget that day. It was in Europe, what... seven years ago now?
It was molecular gastronomy's most prestigious international competition. As famous name after famous name received their awards...
... imagine my shock when I saw a young girl less than ten years of age step forward to receive one of her own!"
"Cooking is art. The more it is honed, the more beautiful and elegant the result.
I look forward to showing you all... the beautiful worlds the art of cooking can create."
She went on to receive almost all the awards there were to win. By the time she was ten years old, she had successfully obtained forty-five patents and was contracted with over twenty different restaurants for research into new menu items.
She is heaven's gift to molecular gastronomy, a certified genius!
Of all the first-year students in the institute, no one can refute that she is the one closest to being named to the Council of Ten!”
― Yuto Tsukuda, 食戟のソーマ 8 [Shokugeki no Souma 8]

“ The cream sauce has a rich, full-bodied bitterness to it that makes the tongue tingle...
Its spicy freshness lightens up the thick, heavy flavor of the roast beef to exactly the right degree! The wallop the meat's juice packs is no joke, but I feel I could keep eating this forever!
Sure, he shoved a mountain of artichokes into this dish...
... but how did he manage to make their uniquely fresh, vibrant and astringent flavor stand out this much?!
"This, too, is the result of Mr. Eizan's highly skilled use of cynarine. Any unnecessary source of sweetness has been removed, which makes the taste of the cream sauce stand out even more starkly."
"Whoa, Whoa! Slow down. I'm totally lost here!"
"I get that cynarine's supposed to make stuff taste sweet, but how does that even work?"
"Is it so bitter that anything tasted afterwards seems sweet by comparison?"
"No, it isn't anything as simple as that. Cynarine directly affects the taste buds."
Yep! When you eat food that contains cynarine, the compound spreads across your tongue as you chew, covering up and thereby blocking the taste buds for sweetness.
That's what's happening with Yukihira and the judges right now. Their tongues can't taste sweet, so bitter flavors really stand out. As they eat other food, the act of chewing gradually wipes the cynarine off the tongue. Slowly, their taste buds resume their normal functions. But here's where the important bit happens...
Since the tongue has been blocked from tasting sweet flavors for a time...
... even a tiny bit of sweetness will now stick out like a sore thumb!
"When there's a ton of cynarine smeared on the tongue, even a cup of water will taste supersweet.”
― Yūto Tsukuda, 食戟のソーマ 27 [Shokugeki no Souma 27]