We brought wagyu from Tottori! What has Ambiente learnt from the Japanese?
Amaso: Guaranteed quality meat
"If Tomáš Karpíšek and the people from Ambiente hadn't come to Tottori, we probably wouldn't have thought of sending our wagyu to the Czech Republic. But in the end it all makes sense. Mr. Torikai is writing a similar story to Amaso," said Rumi, Kengo Torikai's sales assistant for wagyu from the Torikai Chikusan family farm. His father started the farm 50 years ago, and today his brother, Yuturo, manages their 240 or so cattle.
Mr Torikai came to farming in a roundabout way. Originally a news anchor on local cable TV, he decided to return home in 2014, determined to help his parents and neighboring farmers market their beef and set a fair price for hard work and top-quality meat. He first opened a store, and currently runs Yamano Okageya, which includes retail, wholesale, e-commerce and a restaurant, similar to the Amaso concept. Mr. Torikai also launched a company this year Eatopiawith which the farm is working on wider distribution and exports, and brought its president with him to Prague.
On a trip to Czech wagyu
The first day of the visit took place partly outside Prague. The expedition set off first thing in the morning to Sloupnice near Litomyšl, to the Krontorád farmwho have been perfecting the breeding of the Czech wagyu since 2011. "The idea came from chef Olda Sahajdák from La Degustation, where I was a student. One day he asked me why we didn't try breeding wagyu, and that's how it started," said Jana Ferková, daughter of the farm's founder Petr Krontorád, who together with her husband Michal processes and distributes all the meat from the farm. Michal's brother Peter and his wife Silvia take care of the animals.
"We are a small farm. We keep about 120 cattle, more than half of which are wagyu. We fattened the first animals of this breed in 2016 and since then we have been working with Amas. We deliver twelve animals there every year. We sell the rest of the meat in our farm shop and soon we will also serve it in our restaurant. We want to give people a taste of what we do and how we think about meat in the kitchen," Jana added, before guests moved from coffee to stables and grazing.
In the company of the calves, they discussed housing and animal welfare, but also embryo transfer. "The embryo is put into a surrogate mother, most often a Czech Fleckvieh, as it is characterised by good maternal skills. We used to buy frozen embryos, but now we make them in our own country," explained Petr Krontorád, who is involved in cattle breeding and reproduction.
A tailor-made menu
"At first, we foolishly thought that we could just buy embryos and bring them into the world as wagyu calves. But the first time we slaughtered them, it turned out that they the breed required special care and intensive fattening. This is the only way to achieve the correct marbling and the desired quality of meat. We therefore embarked on a journey of inspiration through Europe and ended up changed the way we breed," said Peter, as he and Mr. Torikai looked at the the composition of the feed. The calf spends nine months with its mother on pasture, then moves to a stall where fattening takes place. Slaughter comes at 30 to 36 months.
In Japan, calves are only fattened for 28 to 30 months, but the process is the same, for the meat to acquire the desired marbling. For this reason the bulls are castrated, but more importantly the feed ration continuously increases. Mr Torikai was interested in the length of the fattening period and the feed mixture, which includes, among other things, molasses.
"Carbohydrates play an important role. We therefore feed the calves oats, barley, wheat and maize, but they also eat corn silage and wagyu muesli enriched with minerals and other ingredients. We have recently added molasses, to stimulate the appetite. We give each animal a lot of feed," emphasised Petr.
Good life, good meat
The visit to Sloupnice ended with a joint lunch of grilled wagyu oponka, broth with noodles and liver dumplings and beef (from the Limousin breed) spiked with home-smoked bacon, accompanied by a thick onion sauce with rice. At the table, the idea of Jana and Michal going out for an internship at Torikai Farm to take their farming to an even higher level was formed. On that occasion, Mr. Torikai talked about the uniqueness of the Tottori wagyu, first of all, emphasising the integrated breeding:
"A lot of farmers in Japan work by buying a genetically perfect calf, fattening it and slaughtering it, or they focus only on calf production. But our farm promotes complete breeding from the birth of the calf to the slaughter and processing of the meat." Contact between mother and calf also takes priority. The stalls are separated so that the animals do not lose sight of each other.
"Cows are easily stressed, which negatively affects meat and fat quality, so it really depends on how the animals are feeling. That's why we keep the calf close to its mother throughout its life, even though it's not standard in Japan," Rumi points out. Most of the cows on the Torikai farm give birth up to ten times, after which their rations are altered to make them fat like young steers. Older meat has less fat and a tougher texture but it is still in demand. "Mother cattle normally give birth until they are about 15 years old, but we have a 20-year-old cow that has calved again. This is an exception, but also proof that if the animal receives loving care, it wants to live and breed for a long time."
Meat like butter
A respectful approach to animals and at the same time preserving the genetic lineage has brought the farm remarkable success. Most of the cattle are awarded an A5 rating, which is the maximum on the Japanese quality scale. In 2017, Tottori wagyu won the Meat Quality category in the national Wagyu competition, which is held only once every five years. Torikai Farm then won the 2022 Wagyu competition in Tottori Prefecture, in the category Fat Quality.
"We are not so much about perfect marbling as we are about quality fat. And in recent years, more and more farmers are thinking like this. Tottori wagyu boasts oleic acid, the meat labelled "Olein 55" contains more than 55% of it. It is therefore healthier and has an incredibly delicate taste that is reminiscent of coconut milk," Mr Torikai said, referring to the quality that is developing hand in hand with the need to think about the health aspect of our diet.
The Japanese praise for oleic acid is likened to olive oil and gives beef an unusual deliciousness. Its presence in meat is based from both the feed and the aforementioned genetics. Tottori wagyu evolved from the Ketaka bloodline, which is considered the ancestor of cattle in many parts of the country.
For the slaughterhouse and for beer
The Czech-Japanese meeting continued in Jenč. Mr. Torikai toured the facilities of Amaso, from the hauling and processing plant to production and packaging. The meat drying room and the areas where the beef cuts are aged were inspected and questions about shipping were also answered.
An hour and a half later, it was the right time to step away from the meat and bring two different cultures together over chilled Pilsner and the best view of Prague. "It's all about this moment," Rumi remarked with a smile.
Day number two
Twice eggs in glass, once buns with cream. And three times a beef and horseradish sandwich. The morning at Myšák confectionery kicked off a full day of training on Tottori wagyu. At Torikai Farm, they had packed and brought the meat from a 26-month-old steer.
"The shipment from Tottori is an opportunity to test working with Japanese wagyu, but also the demand on the Czech gastro scene. At first it seemed like nonsense, why should we import meat from Japan? Then I realised that this way we can give people a taste of perfect Japanese wagyu from a specific farm that inspired us and continues to inspire us in our approach to Czech meat," explained Radek Chaloupka, general manager of Naše maso. That is where he took Mr. Torikai after breakfast.
In the butcher's shop there was talk of presentation of meat and cutting styles, about packaging and counter temperature. This is because Japanese wagyu is sold by the slice, which needs 1 to 2°C and a thin cut to prevent drying out. The butchers were thus able to compare Czech and Japanese wagyu the angle of the display case and the size of the portions. A 300g steak does not match the Japanese customs or approach. Wagyu is more likely to appear on the plate on festive occasions and in smaller portions that are filling and at the same time express the value of the raw material.
Czech knife, Japanese knife
"It's not just any Japanese wagyu. It's a wagyu from Mr Torikai from the Tottori region, and that's where I see a huge difference. I also hope that we learn from the Japanese the precision that helps them succeed in everything they do," began butcher Fanda Kšána the workshop at UM on Národní street, where butchers and chefs from Ambiente gathered around noon. Then Mr. Torikai took the floor and demonstrated the various adjustments to the different cuts of meat. Due to the delay of the shipment from Japan, the Czech wagyu from Krontorád and the Japanese wagyu from Miyazaki were used to compare the taste and texture.
Firstly, they were sliced into steaks. Mr Torikai wondered about the thickness. This is because it affects the way the fat behaves when heated and therefore the overall flavour of the dish. Second, the steaks were tested the sukiyaki method, where slices of meat cut into 1,5 to 2 mm slices are fried in a pan, covered with sauce (for caramelisation) and served with egg yolk.
In the meantime, the broth (with beef garum from Goodlok) is heated to shabu shabu, where slices 0.8 to 1.5 mm thick (depending on the lot) are dipped into the hot soup for a few seconds. A little more familiar to the cooks was yakitori technique, which is typical for chicken, but can also be applied to beef. The meat skewers are grilled and then dipped in sauces, usually composed of soy sauce, sugar, mirin, sake and miso paste, ginger and other spices.
Hand-cut meat is also roasted using hot coals in the form of yakiniku. The tougher parts are are finely sliced to shorten the muscle fibres or remove the surface membranes, so that the tenderness of the meat can be fully revealed. The longest preparation was required the steak of the tall sirloin, which was cooked sous-vide for 40 minutes at 60 °C, supposedly to improve the digestibility of the fatty meat. In Japan, it is then sliced and grilled to enhance the flavour.
As for sushi...the meat needs only a second's preparation. Mr Torikai brought a five-kilogram bag of rice, harvested last year from fields fertilised with manure from the Torikai Chikusan farm. His suitcase also held wasabi and wasabi oil.
While the best parts go into the sushi, the lesser quality cuts (neck or knuckle) are ground into burgers, are braised with wine or fried as katsu. The chefs, for the sake of interest, combined ten slices, coated them in panko breadcrumbs and fried them like a schnitzel. It worked!
Mr Torikai put the final piece of the puzzle when he sat down among the chefs and reiterated the idea that brought him to wagyu, from Tottori and eventually to Prague. In his hand, he held the family tree of the animal whose meat the cooks and butchers would be working with in the coming weeks.
The final dinner celebrated an experience that connected two sides of the planet and made the dream of the people of Ambiente come true. They are one step closer to their vision of first-class meat in Czech kitchens.
Supplement
A week after Mr. Torikai's visit, the workshop was repeated for other chefs, not only from Ambiente, who this time cooked with meat from the Torikai Chikusan farm. Jana and Michal from the Krontorád farm also joined them.
