Ryuji Recreates the "Zawa-Pepe" He Ate at an Asakusa Beer Hall Using Only Memory and Taste-Testing

At the start, after mentioning that the views on his previous video, a bell pepper takikomi rice, were climbing, footage from the restaurant the day before is shown. Saying "I've never had a sauerkraut peperoncino," Ryuji takes a bite and is surprised that it has no sourness at all, even though he expected it to be much more sour. He even said things like "It'd be worth coming here just to eat this" and "There's still so much stuff I don't know about." That excitement made him want to try making it himself, so he bought sauerkraut that day.

His companion didn't know what sauerkraut was. Ryuji explains that it's cabbage pickled in vinegar and lightly fermented, and that you can use it simply as a side to meat dishes and the like. It's sold at supermarkets and you can make it yourself, but in Ryuji's view it's quicker to just buy it. He also mentions that the restaurant may have said they use a store-bought product too.

Before cooking, there was a moment when the sauerkraut jar wouldn't open. Ryuji opens it by lightly tapping the edge of the lid. The idea is that tapping deforms the aluminum lid, letting air in more easily and making it easier to open. He says he learned this when he worked at an Italian restaurant, where many imported jars were used. He suggests tapping with scissors or the back of a knife.

They decide on the ingredients by comparing their two memories. The chili seemed to have been added whole but split open, and the heat was very mild, so he judges one chili per serving to be enough. There was quite a lot of garlic, which he estimated at around 10–15 g. What set it apart from an ordinary peperoncino, he says, was that the garlic was fried first into garlic chips and sprinkled over the top at the end.

As for the savory depth of the sauce, he says the restaurant's flavor was different from the consommé he normally uses. His guess is that they might be making something like a fond. His companion recalls that although they like strong umami flavors, the dish was extremely delicious even though it tasted like it didn't use many seasonings, and they found it so intriguing that they kept licking the sauce off a spoon. Figuring out how to make that flavor at home is the fun part of recipe research, Ryuji says.

There was also a fair amount of onion, so he slices some to use. As for bacon, the staff said it contained bacon, but none was visible. So Ryuji guessed that it was finely chopped and used to add flavor. Since the bacon's presence wasn't strong, he minces two half-slices of bacon and adds a small amount. His reasoning is that even if it differs from the restaurant's, it can't possibly clash.

On the noodles, he states firmly that they were boiled separately. His reason is that boiling them together thickens the sauce, so it was definitely not a one-pan dish. The noodles felt a bit on the thick side, so he recommends using 1.6 mm or 1.7 mm, and used 1.7 mm that day. His companion points out that using onion and boiling the noodles separately are not approaches Ryuji would normally come up with.

First he fries thinly sliced garlic in 1 tablespoon of olive oil and removes it. He uses medium heat because thin garlic burns quickly on high. Normally you'd remove the garlic germ, but Ryuji says he no longer does, since he's recently found that leaving it in doesn't affect the flavor much.

The pasta water is 1% salt, and as a guide it should taste like "a slightly strong soup." For the color of the garlic, recalling that the restaurant's was browned deeply but not burnt to a crisp, he stopped at a moderate level. He says he wouldn't cook it this far for an ordinary peperoncino.

On this difference, Ryuji notes that the restaurant's chef was someone with a background in French and German cuisine. That's why, in his view, it probably isn't an authentic Italian method. Pasta made by a Japanese-cuisine chef would be different again. "The authentic way isn't always the best," he says. After lifting out the garlic, he keeps as much of the oil in the pan as possible, because he'll fry the other ingredients in it.

He adds the chili, bacon, and onion to the garlic oil and sautés them. The bacon, he says, wasn't crispy but must have melded into the sauce. When his companion finds onion in a peperoncino novel, Ryuji talks about his days living alone. Onions don't go bad even at room temperature, making them a friend to people living alone, and when he was young he put them in everything. After a light sauté, he takes the pan off the heat and starts boiling pasta labeled for 8 minutes, cooking it for 7.

While it boils, he makes the bouillon. Anticipating some reduction, he adds 80 cc of water to the pan. Ryuji guesses there's a good chance the restaurant either makes a proper bouillon or uses a German bouillon. This time, though, he substituted consommé. The restaurant's flavor wasn't that strong, and the bacon adds umami too, so he uses 1/2 teaspoon of consommé. To create a depth beyond just consommé, he also added 1/4 teaspoon of chicken stock powder (torigara). Chicken bouillon would work too, but most homes probably don't have it, so he went with torigara. Since boiling on high heat evaporates the liquid, he turns it down to low from here.

Here he finally adds the sauerkraut. The restaurant didn't seem to use much either, and he estimated 20 g, or around 25 g at most. Too much makes it sour. Ryuji's guess is that the reason the restaurant's dish didn't taste sour is that they cooked it to drive off the acidity. When he actually simmers it, a fermented smell rises. The restaurant's pasta didn't have this aroma, so he cooks some of it off. If you like sourness, he says you can add more. Finally, he adds a little pasta water.

He drains the pasta while it's still firm. The trick, he explains, is to save a little pasta water so you can loosen things later. He tosses the pasta with the sauce and adds half the garlic chips so their flavor melts into the noodles. The restaurant's pasta still had a saucy quality, so he adds more of the reserved pasta water. "Glad I saved some after all," Ryuji said. Finally, he adjusts the seasoning with a pinch of consommé and finishes with 2 teaspoons of olive oil.

His companion apparently thought the finishing oil might be a different oil. They joke that once it was sesame oil, and they couldn't get over it for a whole day. No pepper, since it's a peperoncino. Having soup left at the bottom of the plate is the same as at the restaurant, he says. After plating, he piles the remaining garlic chips generously on top and it's done. Ryuji stresses once again that he didn't ask for the recipe at all and made it from imagination, and has his companion, who ate at the restaurant with him, judge whether it "seems like it."

The two of them described it as "pretty much the same" and "seriously almost identical." Even the punch of the garlic and the firmness and thickness of the noodles are close, they say. As for the noodles, Ryuji reveals that he'd heard his companion likes them firm, so he cooked them that way. The bacon's umami comes through strongly, and his companion said it might have been included in this form at the restaurant too. They also confirm that adding sauerkraut doesn't make it sour.

While eating, the conversation turned to ways to use sauerkraut. Since it's pickled in vinegar it keeps well, and it's also good alongside pot-au-feu. Ryuji says it plays a pickle-like role, similar to beni shoga (red pickled ginger). It's usually shelved alongside pickles, he explains, because it's essentially a kind of pickle. Since the supermarket Ryuji goes to carries it, he figures many stores probably do.

Since the pasta uses only 20 g, buying a jar means it doesn't go down very fast. At first he said it was about 300 g, but when he weighed it later, it contained 680 g. The easiest way to eat it is alongside sausages, where its sourness brings out their flavor. It's also good in a hot dog in place of pickles. But if you want to make it into a dish of its own, he recommends soup, so he went on to make one.

He cuts bacon (about 60 g in total) into thin strips. If using slab bacon, you can cut it larger. Sausages work too and might even be tastier, Ryuji says. He sautés it in olive oil (or rice bran oil if you don't have any), adds about 90 g of sauerkraut, and sautés them together. Mushrooms are a good addition if you have them, and he used about 50 g of leftover button mushrooms. He adds that button mushrooms probably aren't that commonly left over at home, so maitake or oyster mushrooms are fine too.

He explains that sautéing thoroughly at this stage is the key. Many Japanese people can't handle sour soup. According to Ryuji, sautéing drives off the vinegar, removing the sourness and concentrating only the umami. When he tastes it at the sautéed stage, it's already delicious, he says. He also mentions that he gets excited when ingredients he doesn't normally use come up.

He adds 500 cc of water to make 2–3 servings. Consommé would work, but to make it taste different from the earlier pasta and bring out the sauerkraut's flavor simply, he seasoned it with chicken stock powder. You could add garlic, but that would make it taste the same as the pasta. Ryuji's view is that because sauerkraut is fermented and gives off umami, it makes a really delicious soup base.

He seasons it gradually while checking the taste. Chicken stock alone wasn't enough, so he added a pinch of salt and 4 shakes of pepper. In the end he used 1 1/2 teaspoons of chicken stock powder. If you don't like it salty, you can skip the salt and adjust as you go. He says it goes well with pork too. Once it's cooked through and tastes good to you, it's done. To finish, he drizzles a little olive oil over it.

The verdict on the soup was that the slight lingering sourness is nice, and the texture of the ingredients is good too. Ryuji says that by using chicken stock, it doesn't lean toward a consommé flavor and the sauerkraut's taste comes through properly. As with the pasta, using a small amount as an ingredient works best, and the 90 g used this time was just right, he says. His companion suggested that leftover vegetables like carrots and potatoes would probably go well in it, and Ryuji agreed that potatoes might be good. He values that it's easy to make when you want one more soup dish and that it lets you get some vegetables in.

Finally, Ryuji recommends sauerkraut, saying he thinks you won't regret buying it. The supermarket where he bought it wasn't particularly cheap, but even so it was in the 350-yen range, and there was a lot of it. Since it's pickled in vinegar it keeps well, and if you keep it in the fridge it can serve as a side dish or go into soup. The video wraps up with the remark that it's also good with bread at breakfast.