posted by Nastassia Lopez (photos courtesy of John M. Sconzo)
![ike1 Dave, Nils and Fish at Star Chefs.](https://cookingissues.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/ike1.jpg)
They started the demo off with a mokume-gane of lamb and yellowfin tuna. After molding together the two proteins with meat glue, Dave and Nils par-froze the block  and sliced the result paper-thin on a Hobart 3000 Slicer.
![mokumegane process The creation of the beautiful mokume gane wood grain effect.](https://cookingissues.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/mokumegane-process.jpg)
They dressed each corner of the mokume-gane  slice with a different, delicious condiment. First, the “Egg-on-Egg-on-Egg.” Step one, pressure cook egg yolks with baking  powder at 15 psi for 40 minutes, slice into cylindrical discs and saute in butter for a toast-like texture and flavor. Step two, pressure cook egg whites (to  get brown, Maillard-reaction flavors), finely chop and place on top of the yolk disc. Finally, pile a hefty spoonful of Italian caviar on top and garnish with chives. We’ll post more on this technique later.
![eggprocess The egg-on-egg-on-egg trick.](https://cookingissues.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/eggprocess.jpg)
Next the team vacuumed-infused shaved Honeycrisp apples with centrifuged pistachio oil, and cucumbers with chorizo oil,  and placed mounds in opposite corners. Finally, Nils rolled a savory spoonful of pumpernickel ice cream ( milk, sour cream, glucose syrup, salt and fresh pumpernickel bread blended and tammied) onto the plate. Pistachio and chorizo oils dressed the center to finish.
![final mokume gane Lamb and yellowtail mokume gane.](https://cookingissues.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/final-mokume-gane.jpg)
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The Ike Jime Black Sea Bass Dish
On to the main event: Ike Jime-ing a live black sea bass. At noon, True World Foods delivered a truckload of 6 happy sea bass and dumped them into a large black tub. A chiller kept the water at 50F, bubblers provided oxygen, and and a tank filter duct-taped to the side continuously cleaned the water.
![fishprocess The arrival of the sea bass.](https://cookingissues.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/fishprocess.jpg)
At 5:30pm Mindy and the interns rolled the bass onto the stage.
![rollingfish Mindy and interns rolling sea bass.](https://cookingissues.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/rollingfish.jpg)
Dave and Nils poured 85 mL of Aqui-S fish anesthetic into the tub to sedate the fish (the flesh of sedated fish is better and the killing is more humane – see the Aqui-S link). In 15 minutes the fish were knocked out, and Dave and Nils worked faster than clowns-on-fire to ike-jime the bass in 20 seconds flat.
![ikeprocess Ike Jime live!](https://cookingissues.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/ikeprocess.jpg)
Nils filleted the fish as Dave showed how to make some unorthodox serving plates — cut, boiled and oxy-cleaned tuna vertebrae.  The tuna spine provided more than just plates: inside the spinal column was fresh spinal jelly, a key component of the dish that tastes like sea water gelee. They mixed it with diced celery and put it back into the cleaned vertebrae.
![spinalplate Tuna spinal cord turned into a plate; and spinal jelly.](https://cookingissues.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/spinalplate.jpg)
Nils added the fresh, crunchy, ike-jime bass and finished the dish with pecan oil, yuzu kosho, squares of pecan yokan and rotovapped hyper-reduced Sansa apple syrup.
![finalserving Final plating of the Ike Jimed bass inside tuna spine.](https://cookingissues.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/finalserving.jpg)
![muscletest Dave used a twitch-tester to shock fish muscle that had been killed with ike jime five hours earlier to show that the ike-jime fish tissue was still contracting --still full of life.](https://cookingissues.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/muscletest.jpg)
The Finale
A fitting end: Dave and Nils passed around test tubes of our own house aquavit and Skoaled the audience.
![skoal[1] And then they skoaled each other.](https://cookingissues.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/skoal1.jpg)
If the remaining fish in the tub had opposable thumbs, they would have skoaled too. Instead, folks hung around after the demo and got a hands-on lesson in Ike Jime.
Thanks, Star Chefs!
Thank you, John.
Where did these guys learn all of this, did they spend time in the far east ?
Impressive stuff, chefs
Yes – the far lower east side.
Getting the audience to skoal at the end of your demo was hilarious and a fun way to end the conference. Enjoyed the demo too! You guys pack a lot of information in one hour.
Please pitch this blog to a network and make it a TV show that YOU both host.
Amazing!