Fake Roast Pork from Shokugeki no Soma – Episode 1 Recipe with Bacon

The first episode of Shokugeki no Souma does not teach you how to bake a tray of bacon. Soma Yukihira is boxed in at Restaurant Yukihira: the meat is gone, the guest wants a juicy roast, and what is left is potato, mushroom, onion, and a pack of bacon.

We have written the technique down here with some explanations so you won't lose your way — a mash shaped like a roast, wrapped until it browns, then finished with a quick wine sauce. The Japanese name is なんちゃってローストポーク (nanchatte rōsuto pōku), a “just kidding” roast pork.

Yield: 4 servings
Time: about 2 hours, including 1 hour under foil

Contents 11

What Soma actually cooks

English fans often call the plate Gotcha Pork Roast. The series wiki lists it as Roast Pork, Just Kidding. Both names point at the same joke as なんちゃって: it only has to pass for roast pork. The center is a mash of potato, onion, and mushroom, rolled into a log, wrapped in bacon with rosemary, baked, and sauced like a Western roast.

Soma cooks it after Yaeko Minegasaki, an urban planner, has the meat in the kitchen sabotaged and still wants a juicy meat dish. The bacon is not a garnish. Fat and smoke from the strips have to soak the potato so the first bite feels closer to roast than to mashed potato. It is the first featured dish in the series, and the first one that works at Yukihira. For more on the show itself — kanji, openings, and other plates that made it out of the manga — see our Shokugeki no Souma notes.

This kitchen version follows Anna Clara Cabral's home method: dried shiitake, aluminum foil, 200 °C, and a short red-wine sauce with butter and sugar. The episode leans on eryngii (king oyster mushroom). Dried shiitake is what was written down here. Cut small, it still gives the mash a meaty chew without asking you to hunt for king oyster the same afternoon.

Ingredients

For the mashed potatoes

• 8 small potatoes, or 6 medium ones (a starchy variety works best)
• 100 g dried shiitake mushrooms, cut into small cubes
• 2 medium onions, cut into small cubes
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

To wrap the mash

• 2 packs of 250 g bacon, sliced into strips
• A few sprigs of fresh rosemary

For the finishing sauce

• ½ cup dry red wine
• 40 g salted butter
• 1 teaspoon sugar

Utensils you'll need

• Aluminum foil
• Kitchen string
• Toothpicks (if needed)
• Baking tray.

How to make it

• Preheat your oven to 200 °C.

Start with the mashed potatoes

• Scrub the potatoes clean with a brush
• Cut each potato into four pieces and steam them until soft but still firm
• Peel them by hand and mash with a potato masher. Set aside
• In a pan, sauté the onions and shiitake in the olive oil until the onion turns slightly translucent. Season with salt and pepper to taste
• Mix the sautéed onion and shiitake into the mashed potatoes until you get a firm dough. If your mash is too soft, add one to two tablespoons of flour or breadcrumbs
• Open a sheet of aluminum foil, place the potato dough on it and shape it into a cylinder.

Wrapping with bacon

• Open the foil with the potato dough, and start wrapping bacon strips around it. Turn it upside down and keep wrapping until the entire surface is covered
• Tie everything securely with kitchen string, along with the rosemary sprigs
• Cover the whole thing with aluminum foil and bake for about 1 hour
• After 1 hour, remove the foil and continue baking until the surface turns golden brown
• Near the end of baking, start preparing the sauce.

Why the foil stays on for an hour

The bacon has to render fat into the mash without the outside burning while the center is still a potato dough. Covering the log for about 1 hour at 200 °C lets the heat travel through the foil, then you uncover it and keep baking until the surface turns golden. If the mash was too wet when you shaped it, the log can split when the bacon shrinks — that is why a spoon or two of flour or breadcrumbs helps if the dough is soft. Leave gaps in the bacon and the potato can leak. Kitchen string is not decoration: it keeps the “roast” from unrolling on the tray.

A longer, streaky rasher is easier to wrap than short breakfast strips. Toothpicks only if a flap of bacon will not stay put. When it comes out, snip the string and pull the rosemary before you slice. They are there for the oven, not for the plate.

For the sauce

• Pour the wine and sugar into a small saucepan
• As soon as the mixture starts to bubble, add the butter and turn off the heat
• Take the bacon roast out of the oven and drizzle generously with the sauce. Serve immediately!

The sauce is short on purpose: dry red wine, a teaspoon of sugar, and salted butter off the heat so it stays glossy. It does not need a long reduction. Slice the log at the table while the bacon is still crisp. If it sits, the steam from the mash softens the wrap.

If you want another plate from the same kitchen, the apple risotto from Shokugeki no Souma is a different kind of trick — sweetness and bacon in a rice pan rather than a fake roast. For bread you can pull apart at the table, there is also a chigiri pan recipe.

(Article written by Anna Clara Cabral)