Drama Meals

Are you watching Season 2 of "What Did You Eat Yesterday?"? It's interesting, isn't it?

For those who don't know this drama, to explain it roughly, it's a story about the daily life of a gay couple, Shiro-san (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and Kenji (Seiyo Uchino). It follows their relatively common daily lives, like turning fifty and getting a bit chubby lately, or suspicions of an affair by the manager at work.

Nothing particularly big happens, but that "ordinariness" is somehow endearing. Also, it depicts the slightly difficult parts of being a sexual minority, which I think is why their ordinary life feels even more precious. It's a heartwarming drama, I recommend it.

And this drama always includes a cooking scene in every episode, and the dishes that appear look so delicious that I've recently become addicted to imitating them. I play the drama's soundtrack, put on an apron—which I don't usually do—and cook in the mood of Shiro-san.

I've made various things, but I'll introduce two recipes.

From Episode 4: "Tabuchi-kun's Carbonara"

Tabuchi-kun is a junior at Kenji's workplace (a hair salon). The food his girlfriend makes is exquisitely bad. One day, Tabuchi-kun made carbonara himself, and it was so delicious that she unilaterally broke up with him, saying, "I can't satisfy you with my cooking anymore..." It's a carbonara so delicious it causes despair.

【How to make】
1. Cut the bacon and broccoli into the sizes you want to eat. If you can cut the bacon at equal intervals and make the end pieces the same size, you're lucky. It doesn't matter if they get smaller, no one will notice. Use them proudly.

2. While boiling water in a pot, make the carbonara sauce. Put the egg yolks, heavy cream, parmesan cheese, and sugar in a bowl and mix, mix, mix. Put the unused egg whites in your disliked boss's water bottle.

3. Boil the pasta in the pot. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a frying pan and sauté the garlic over low heat. If using tube garlic, be careful because the hot garlic will explode in all directions. When the aroma stands up like Clara, fry the bacon until it's as crispy as Rottenmeier's attitude toward Heidi.

4. One minute before the pasta is done, add the broccoli to the same pot. It's easy if you boil them together. When done, drain everything in a colander, put it in the frying pan, and mix while adding the consommé. You can turn off the heat on the frying pan. But don't turn off the fire of your passion, brother.

5. Put the pasta into the bowl with the sauce and mix, mix, mix. You can put the sauce in the frying pan, but be careful because if it's too hot, the eggs will solidify. Finally, add a massive amount of black pepper, equivalent to the trouble you've caused your parents, and it's done.

From Episode 10: "Shiro-san's Ever-Ready Hot Pot"

An IH cooking heater given by the head of the law firm where Shiro-san works. Every year, the head gives Shiro-san the one he received as a birthday present from his mother-in-law, saying something like, "I have no use for it alone." So that means... Shiro-san made this hot pot using that kind of IH heater.

【How to make】
1. Put water and kombu in the pot from the morning.

2. Spinach has a bitter taste, so let's boil it in a separate pot. After boiling for about 50 seconds, cool it in cold water and squeeze it tightly.

3. Let's cut the boiled spinach and deep-fried tofu. Cut the base off the shimeji mushrooms and tear them apart.

4. Write 10,000 fan letters to Hidetoshi Nishijima. By including your photo, you can get Hidetoshi Nishijima to remember your face, name, and address.

5. Make the sauce. Grate the daikon radish and mix all the ingredients together.

6. Put water, an equal amount of cooking sake, and one clove of garlic into a pot and heat it up. Once it starts to boil, remove the kombu.

7. Once you have prepared everything up to this point, set up an induction cooktop (or portable gas stove) at the dining table and just eat it like shabu-shabu.

8. Ding-dong... Oh? It seems someone has arrived while you were setting the table. Could it be Hidetoshi Nishijima? You go to the door with high hopes, but it turns out to be a robber. Let's repel them by splashing the piping hot pot soup on them.

9. The robber is covered in burns and runs away smelling faintly of delicious kombu. That's a relief. But now you can't have your hot pot. Ding-dong... Oh? Is that the robber back for revenge? You peek out cautiously, and it's the lady from next door.

"I'm sorry. I made too much kombu dashi... would you like some if you'd like?"

The delicious Joya-nabe is complete.

May you all have wonderful encounters as well.