Bobby Hill's Fusion Restaurant Menu Recreated in Real Life

Let me make something perfectly clear. This is not authentic Japanese or German food. It's authentic Bobby food. Alio. Hey, what's up guys? Welcome back to Binging with Babish. I'm very excited to be exploring some food from the new seasons of King of the Hill. In fact, season 2 of The Revival just premiered. Last season, there was one episode particularly focused on Bobby's restaurant where he's marrying some interesting flavors from Japanese and German cuisine. Not two cuisines that I would imagine putting together, but it did sound interesting. So, let's see how it tastes here on a good oldfashioned binging with Babish.

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templates make it so easy to set up exactly what you need. To create one of your own, head to squarespace.com for a free trial and use code Babish for 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So, are you German or Japanese? I am neither German nor Japanese. Actually, I do have some German in me. I have no Japanese, but to be fair, I'm recreating stuff from a cartoon, so we're safe. I think we're perfectly safe. We didn't come up with this stuff. And the episode has a message about cultural appropriation, which you'll have to watch to find out. First up, we need to make a dipping sauce. I'm combining one cup of whole milk, plain yogurt, with two cloves of garlic, grated, and half a

small shallot, also grated. We're also going to add the juice from one particularly juicy lemon. We're going to want that acid to contrast all the richness and fishiness that we're going to be dealing with. And we're going to add a solid handful of chopped fresh dill. Make sure you finely chop it because you don't want long strands of dill in your dipping sauce. We're also seasoning to taste with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. Mix until fully homogeneous. And to bring a little bit of Japanese flare, I'm going to season it with some fur kake. This is a mixture of salt, sugar, toasted naughty, and toasted sesame seeds. All of which are going to be welcome flavors in this situation.

Give it a taste for seasoning. And ideally, let it sit in the fridge overnight to let the flavors get to know each other. Next up, the herring itself. And I'm sorry I hit record a little late on this one, so I don't have the actual herring coming out of the jar, but it is wine marinated jarred herring. Maybe one of my least favorite food stuffs in the world. Let's see if tempura can save it. So, I'm patting the fish dry and then dusting it in potato starch before dropping it in a very standard tempura batter. Dip the fish in that mixture and drop it straight into some preheated 350° Fahrenheit neutral flavored oil. These are going to fry for 2 to 4 minutes.

They're not going to get deeply golden brown, this being tempura batter, but they should pick up some color. Evacuate those onto a wire rack set in a rim baking sheet and sprinkle some furk on them while they're still hot. All there is left to do is plate it up and try it. I'm gonna sprinkle a little extra furk on the fish and the dipping sauce itself. And there you have it. An easy and interesting appetizer from Robot Chain. But let's see how it tastes. And the answer is not very good. I'm not a big herring fan, so don't trust me. But it was extremely fishy and mushy from being both marinated and then

cooked again. So, not my favorite. I've never actually had a reason, a real reason to say this, but dang it, Bobby. Next up, the thing I'm most excited about, yuzu worst sausage. Something Bobby describes as a broughtwurst with pickled daikon rice and yuzu. To make the sausage itself, I have 3 lbs of boneless pork shoulder that I'm going to cube into 1 in pieces. I'm setting all these on parchment paper set in rim baking sheet and throwing them in the freezer for 20 to 30 minutes until they're really firm around the edges, but not totally frozen through. I'm going to do the same with one lb of pork fatback, which is exactly what it sounds like.

It's pork, it's fat, and it's back. And it too is getting cubed into 1in pieces and put in the freezer. So too is some ve. I couldn't find some whole pieces of ve. So I have 2 lbs of ve stew meat that I'm going to cube up and put in the freezer along with my meat grinder, which is about to get strapped to my stand mixer. Now, Bobby does describe the sausage as stuffed with rice. So I've got some sushi rice that I've steamed here that I'm sprinkling with a little bit of sushi rice vinegar and kosher salt and letting cool completely before adding it to my sausage. I hope I don't have to explain why you don't add hot rice to cold raw sausage. Next up, the daicon. I have some pickled Japanese daon here that I'm going to finely

chop. I don't want big pieces of daon. I don't want it to be crunchy. I just want it to bring the flavor. So, nice fine chop. About a cup's worth. And now it's time, as Jenz likes to say, to get to grind to hit the grind to what do they say? First, I'm passing all this pork and ve and pork fat back through my grinder's coarsest plate, which is going to give us a coarse, pebbly grind. Then, we're putting that ground meat back in the freezer for 15 minutes to firm up again and passing it through our finest grinder plate, giving us a nice smooth farce for our broughtwurst. Now, it's time to season and emulsify that farce. So, in the bowl of a stand mixer, I'm combining my ground meat with 2 tbsps of

kosher salt, 1 tbsp of ground white pepper, 1 teaspoon of mace, 2 tsps ground ginger, 2 tsps of dried mustard, 1 and 1/2 tsps of freshly grated nutmeg. Nutmeg is an essential spice to the broughtwurst experience. I'm going to add one egg yolk just for some richness and structure. And for even more richness, one cup of ice cold heavy cream. And I'm starting with about 2 tbsp of yuzu juice. I don't want to overwhelm with yuzu flavor. I want it to play nice with everything. So, I'm starting small. We can always adjust later on. Last but not least, we're going to beat some crushed ice into the farce. So, I've got some ice that I'm pulsing in the blender until

it's about the texture of an icy and adding about a/2 cup to our farce mixture. Then, we're beating this on high speed for 1 to 3 minutes until it lightens in color, gets sort of smooth and smeary. Once emulsified, I'm going to add my sushi rice. I don't want to overprocess the rice and break it up too much. Then, it's time to give it a taste test. So, I'm going to grab a little ball of meat. I'm going to pat it out into a patty. fry it in a frying pan with a little bit of vegetable oil until it's golden brown on both sides and see how this thing tastes. And the answer's really fantastic. The yuzu actually plays very nicely with the warming spices and the daikon brings a wonderful acidic hit. But I

don't think it's yuzui enough. So I'm going to yuzu some yuzu kosho. This is a yuzu paste that's been seasoned with salt and spices. So let's emulsify that together. See what that tastes like. And it's pretty grand. It's got a really nice balance of flavors that all work surprisingly well together. The only thing that kind of sucks is the rice. It feels like a filler and it kind of screws up the structure of the sausage. So, I would recommend leaving the rice out. I'm going to dump this farce out onto a parchment lined rim baking sheet. Put it back in the freezer for another 10- 15 minutes to firm it up. And then it's time to stuff our sausages. I have some natural hog casings here that I'm soaking in ice water to rinse off the

salt. So now all we need to do is thread it onto our sausage stuffer like an endless condom. Then once we got enough on there, snip off the end, tie a knot, and poke a hole. This is to prevent air from being pushed by the farce through the grinder into the sausage and inflating it. Not unlike a balloon. Then it's time to start diligently stuffing the farce back into the grinder and using it to fill our sausages. An act best accomplished with three hands. It's really hard to grind sausage by yourself. So, I recommend recruiting a friend or loved one or enemy if you want to know your enemy. I'm doing something stupid, which is twisting the sausages as I go. You shouldn't do that. I don't know why I did it. I don't truly don't

remember my thought process. I must have been high. But either way, you want to twist the sausages in opposing directions. That helps prevent them from unfurling when you cook them. But that shouldn't be an issue because now we're going to let these sit uncovered in the fridge overnight. This is going to dry out the casings a little bit and help prevent them from splitting on the grill. Now, these sausages are going to be cooked twice basically. We're going to start by poaching them in beer. I have some wonderful Japanese asah beer, one of my favorites, which I'm going to bring to 180° Fahrenheit and poach the sausages gently for 15 to 25 minutes, depending on the girth of your sausage. You basically want it to reach 155

165° F at its thickest point. Once it's there, take it out, let it cool completely, cover it, and put it in the fridge for up to three days before consuming. Now, into one of the central plot points of the episode, the binchan charcoal, which Bobby is insistent on using for authenticity. How do you know if a food is authentic? I don't know how to define a food as authentic. I do know how to define it as inauthentic, and that's what all this stuff is because it's a mish mash of culture. So, I have some bichon that I'm placing in a charcoal chimney and placing that directly above a highowered burner. This is going to ignite all the charcoal throughout as it goes for 20 25 minutes until all the coals

are bright red and there's white ash forming on the outside. I'm transferring this to our beach no time grill. Enjoying the slow-mo and all the particles you can see. I'm turning on my commercialgrade ventilation system because I'm doing this indoors. Do not do this indoors. And prepping my sausage. doing a little food styling by rubbing it down essentially with some vegetable oil. It's going to help it brown up a little bit more evenly. And then I'm cutting it into lengths. It's a little curved, so I'm cutting out the curved bits, which you know, those will be little snacks for me. But the robot skewers that Bobby presents are little straight segments of sausage, so that's what I'm trying to imitate. And I'm going to impale these sausages on two

skewers. This is going to allow me to rotate the sausages reliably. Otherwise, they might just spin on the single skewer and you might not be able to grill them evenly. Once you got your sausages skewered, it is time for the moment of truth. That's right. I am pitting charcoal against propane. I'm going to grill up some of these sausages on the banoton charcoal, but I'm also going to grill some sausage over propane to find out once and for all which one's better. As you can see, on the left I have the botan and on the right the propane. The bchon browned a little better. There's less carbon buildup on the outside. That's one of the great things about binchan is that it burns very cleanly and it doesn't flare as

much as normal charcoal or propane. As you can see, the propane sausage has some black buildup, some soot on the outside from flare-ups. So, let's give them a try. The charcoal one is very, very good. It does have a nice clean taste. I am indeed tasting the meat rather than the heat. But the bonan is really something special. I prefer the beonan. It's It's crispier on the outside. It's got a really deep carbonized flavor from that charcoal. It's for sure a dirtier meat experience, but it's one that I prefer. But I'm just one guy. So, I'm going to bring on my dear friends, Sawyer and Brad, to taste test these two sausages and point out their favorite. 3 2 1. Wow, it

takes all kinds. It would seem as though Sawyer prefers to taste the meat and not the heat. Last but not least, something I'm morbidly curious about. Sauerkraut ice cream. This is apparently a thing. I found multiple recipes online that seem to have their roots in German cuisine. People describe it as having a sort of buttermilk tang to it, which does sound nice, but I just can't imagine the texture of sauerkraut being very good in ice cream. First up, I'm going to make some dessert sauerkraut as the topping. And I have two big, beautiful pendulus red cabbages that I'm going to peel the outer leaves off of, cut off the stems, cut them into quarters, core them, and then thinly shred them on a

mandolin. You're probably best off doing this with the slicer attachment in your food processor or with just a knife. The mandolin ended up being kind of cumbersome. Once you got all that finely shredded, it's time to encratify it. But I'm going to add some sort of dessert elements in the form of thinly juliened orange peel. I think this is going to bring a nice contrast to the carowway. And some freshly grated ginger. And here's a fun kitchen hack. Freeze your ginger. It makes it easier to peel and much easier to grate and it keeps beautifully in the freezer. I'm also going to add about a tablespoon of kosher salt and a tablespoon of caraway seeds. Next, we need to massage

the salt into the cabbage to get it to release its liquid. So, thoroughly massage it for about three full minutes until it is dripping wet and then it's ready to ferment. So, we're going to put that into our sanitized fermentation vessel of choice, load it up with the cabbage, press it down evenly. Then, we want to weigh it down. So, I'm placing a sheet of parchment paper inside the jar and weighing it down with a couple of fermentation weights. Then, to let this ferment, you can use any number of methods. You could cover the jar with a couple layers of cheesecloth and secure it with a rubber band. Or this jar has a hole in the center into which you can shove a fermentation device.

It's actually a kind of valve that only lets air out and not in. Then we're letting this guy sit in a cool, dark place like your basement for at least 10 days up to 4 weeks. The longer you go, the more sour the kraut will become. So I'm only going for about 2 weeks because I don't want it to be super duper sour. I still want to have a cabbage essence to it. Now, on to the actual custard. In a large saucepan, we are combining three cups of whole milk and two cups of heavy cream. Then, in a separate heat proof bowl, we're combining two large eggs with 1 and 1/4 cups of granulated sugar. I'm passing mine through a fine mesh sie because it's a little clumpy. I'm also going to add a heaping teaspoon of white miso paste. I wanted to add some

Japanese flare to this sauerkraut ice cream. It's going to be rich and savory and salty. Now, we want to beat this egg sugar mixture together until it's completely smooth. Bring the milk and cream mixture up to a bare simmer. Take it off the heat. Bring it over to the bowl. Secure the bowl with a moist kitchen towel that's going to keep it in place while we whisk it constantly. And slowly ladle in the hot milk cream mixture. We don't want to scramble the eggs, so you got to start very, very slowly to temper them. By the time you've added about half, you can move much more quickly. Then we're going to add this mixture back to the remaining milk and cream, whisking constantly just

to be safe. Set this back over medium low heat and cook for anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes until it's thickened to the point of nape. Now, once we've killed the heat, I'm going to add about a teaspoon and a half of vanilla extract. I think that's going to play really nicely with the tang coming from the sauerkraut. Speaking of which, it's time to add some sauerkraut to our ice cream, which is a sentence I did not think I was going to say, at least in this lifetime. I'm doing two batches here. One utilizing sauerkraut juice so we keep a nice smooth texture. The other I've got some freshlysqueezed dry sauerkraut that I'm finely chopping into coconutized shreds. And the other one, I'm just dumping that sauerkraut

right on in there. Let's whisk that in and give it a taste. And I'm pleased to report that this might be the very best vanilla ice cream I've ever had. I'm not crazy about the texture of the kraut, but it brings a wonderful tanginess. Indeed, a buttermilk-l like twang to the situation. And the miso just makes the vanilla all the more rich and salty and wonderful. Cover it up with plastic wrap pressed directly against the custard. Put it in the fridge and let it cool overnight. And then dump it into your ice cream maker and allow to churn for the manufacturer's recommended period of time until it looks like frozen yogurt or soft serve. At which point we're

going to dump it into our freezing vessel of choice. Smooth it out and let it sit in the freezer at least overnight to finish the freezing process. Now it's time to examine our kraut. It's been about 2 weeks and it smells like farts. This is normal. There's a very farty stage in the fermentation of sauerkraut. But as you can see, there wasn't nearly enough liquid in my sauerkraut. So, the top half wasn't submerged and it kind of dried out a little bit. This could potentially be dangerous. But if there's no fuzzy mold or really death-like smells clinging to it, it's probably fine. Then again, I'm not a doctor. I am not a scientist. I'm just a guy. So, take everything that I'm saying with a big old grain of kosher salt,

please. I think it's safe. So, I'm going to give it a taste. And it's interesting. It's not nearly as tangy as most sauerkraut cuz it needs more time to lacto ferment. And it has a definite presence of orange and carowway, which are interesting and kind of good. So, I think they might work in our ice cream context. Let's see what it's like all together. We have our whole sauerkraut ice cream here. Scoop's pretty nice, which I'm going to top with our quote unquote dessert crout. Let's give it a taste. And I got to say, it might be the best vanilla ice cream I've ever had, but the texture is way off. I do not like the sort of squishy crunch that you get with whole sauerkraut in this situation. So

for the sauerkraut juice ice cream, let's try making some sweet sauerkraut topping. Grabbing about a/2 cup of the kraut and I'm pressing it extremely dry. Then over on the stove top in a small sauté, I'm combining 1/2 cup each granulated sugar and water. Bring that up to a simmer and dropping in the dried kraut. Then cooking for anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes until most of the water is cooked off and the mixture's thickened and the bubbles are prolific and small. That means that it's mostly sugar at this point. Then I'm shake drying the kraut and dumping it directly into a bowl of granulated sugar to make it kind of like candied orange peel. All right, let's try it with our smooth sauerkraut ice cream. This time I'm going to add some black

sesame seed for looks and flavor and top it with our candied kraut. There you have it, an interesting looking dessert. Let's see if it's an improvement on the original. And it truly is some of the best ice cream I've ever had. The big takeaway here is to add miso to your ice cream, especially vanilla ice cream. It really makes it rich and salty and savory on top of super sweet and light. And the sauerkraut genuinely brings a nice acidic hit almost like a buttermilk. I might use buttermilk just straight up if I were you. But then again, you don't get to tell your friends you made sauerkraut ice cream. And isn't that what making sauerkraut ice cream is all about? As far as fantasy cartoon food goes, two for one

is a really good score. So, nice job, Bobby. And thank you guys so much for watching. It's been a while since I've done an oldfashioned binging. I'm really excited to go watch the new season of King of the Hill and find out if there's any more food worth recreating. If there's anything you want to see on future episodes of binging, shout out in the comments. Otherwise, I'll see you next time here with Babish. Binging with Babish. That's what this is. Binging with Babish. Thanks again to my long-term partner Squarespace for sponsoring this episode.

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code Babish for 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. At the end of the day, did we honor both cultures equally or offend them equally? We didn't do anything, Brad, because again, none of this was my idea. Also, there's no Japanese elements of this ice cream. So I added some which does in fact make it my responsibility.