Morimoto: The New Art of Japanese Cooking - a review

	Morimoto: The New Art of Japanese Cooking Masaharu Morimoto DK Publishing 2007 RRP: £19.54
"Beautiful, sublime, informative but utterly bonkers!"
Buy Morimoto: The New Art of Japanese Cooking from Amazon.co.uk

As a keen fan of fish, I am beginning to find myself drawn ever closer to sushi and sashimi - what more pure way can there be of having fish than this?  Of course, I'm also driven by the theatre of the thing as well, but I think it's the deep savour of sparkling fresh raw fish that I long for all too often these days. 

Masaharu Morimoto is many things - a would-be baseball player, a TV star but above all an inspired chef.  He made his mark in the US through the crazy TV show Ironchef - something I've just discovered on UKTV Food.  The format of Ironchef requires the chef to be able to create multiple dishes out of a single main ingredient - and it's the points available for originality that Morimoto must get.  

Morimoto comes from a traditional Japanese chef's background in that he has done years of training - a seven year apprenticeship led to him opening a restaurant in Hiroshima, but it is his grounding in America that makes him a stand-out, different chef. 

His traditional training allows him to make the most sublime looking sushi and sashimi, but it's when he allows himself to be influenced by American food (or American-Italian in particular) that he comes into his own.  So his pork gyoza comes with tomato sauce and a bacon-cream reduction.  He makes squid ink and salmon gnocchi, his tempura come with a gorganzola sauce.  He has a recipe for "Crispy Duck with Port Wine Reduction and Red Miso Sauce" but the title is only half the story; it comes with a croissant stuffed with foie gras and duck meat and a duck egg on the side...

I'm not sure I'd want to cook everything in the book (I'm not sure I could afford to) - chocolate-coated sweetfish liver anyone? Squid strawberry ice candy?  The thing is, I'd love to eat the stuff just once!  He says in the book that the best way to eat at his restaurants is to sit at the bar and let the chef just cook for you - but when customers do this and claim they don't like sea urchin for example, the first dish they get is likely to be sea urchin.  Morimoto lives to challenge - and boy, I'd love to be challenged by him in one of his restaurants!

This book is utterly beautiful, totally bonkers, great fun but also quite inspiring.  I think I'm gonna go get me some sushi...

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