“It’s Japanese Wagyu, which is graded A5, one of the very highest grades. We slice it very thinly; in New York, some places will serve a sixteen-ounce rib eye. But in Japan that’s not how it’s eaten.”
“We use a trio of radishes: red radish, icicle radish, and French-breakfast radish. We sous-vide them with sesame oil, rice-wine vinegar, crushed lemongrass, chile, ginger, and coriander seed at 83 degrees Celsius.”
“We mix in sweet and Thumbelina carrots to bring in something sweeter and also to offset the peppery heat of the radish. And it adds a nice color to the dish.”
“The meat is so soft that we wanted a larger piece of watercress, for texture and crunch.”
“It’s 90 degrees outside, and we’re dealing with what is basically an 80-gram piece of butter. So we wanted something with texture, crunch, sweetness, and heat. We blanch whole peanuts in simple syrup, deep-fry them, and then toss them while hot in a shichimi-togarashi spice mix.”
“It’s a pretty subtle onion flavor; we wanted that flavor but not enough to overpower anything. And visually the bright pink is really beautiful.”
“We start with a really high-grade tamari, take sesame oil, and steep it with the braising aromatics, and a little bit of mirin. We also had some of the clear, clean, rendered Wagyu-beef fat. That’s the last knockout punch.”