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By HIROKI KOIZUMI/ Staff Writer

Simmered pork loin with savory sauce (Photo by Atsuko Shimamura)

Editor’s note: In the Taste of Life series, cooking experts, chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life.

Chef Hiromitsu Nozaki of Waketokuyama, a Japanese cuisine restaurant, served the national baseball team at the 2004 Athens Olympics as the grand chef.

The request came directly from professional baseball manager Shigeo Nagashima, who was a regular at the restaurant.

He asked Nozaki to feed the players proper meals. Although Nagashima succumbed to a brain infarction after that and could not travel to Athens, Nozaki accompanied the team to cook meals for the players.

To work with him, Nozaki chose, from among the mid-career and young staff working at the group companies, four people who had played competitive baseball in high school.

He chose the men who had experienced varying degrees of frustration through baseball hoping that “although they could not make it to Koshien Stadium (venue of the national high school baseball tournaments), they would take pride in the cooking profession by going to the Olympics.”

While fresh ingredients were bought locally, they took Japanese seasonings including dried skipjack tuna shavings and soy sauce with them. The menu was mainly Japanese and was reminiscent of home cooking raised one notch above with many side dishes.

They were asked to make dishes that provided energy to the players. Although Nozaki thought of menus that focused on vegetables at first, meat dishes began to take over. This week’s “simmered pork loin with savory sauce” was one of the favorite dishes among the players.

Things were quite hectic for Nozaki and his team on days when there were games in the morning. They would get up at 5 a.m. to make 100 rice balls and some side dishes for the players to eat during the game.

They cooked lunch at 2 p.m. and began preparing for dinner at 4 p.m. They hardly had time to relax.

Kiyoshi Nakahata, who served as the head coach of the bronze medal-winning baseball team on behalf of Nagashima, thanked them by saying, “We had meals that were more Japanese than what we would eat back home.”

Nozaki also gave advice on the meals served at the Athlete's Village for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

“I have a feeling similar to pride for participating in the Olympics despite not being an athlete,” he said.

Hiromitsu Nozaki: Born in 1953 in Fukushima Prefecture, Hiromitsu Nozaki is the grand chef of a Japanese cuisine restaurant. After working as the chief chef at Tokuyama, a restaurant offering pufferfish dishes, he became the grand chef of Waketokuyama. He is also certified as a nutritionist.

300 grams pork loin (buta-rosu) block, 15 grams salt, 30 grams each of celery leaves, carrot and green onion (naganegi type), 70 grams onion, 800 ml water, 80 ml each of light-colored soy sauce and sake

1. Tie pork with cooking string. Dust with salt and leave for 1 hour.

2. Dip meat in hot water as if removing salt until color of surface changes. Rinse in cold water and pat dry.

3. Coarsely chop celery leaves, carrot, green onion and onion and add to pot. Add water, light-colored soy sauce, sake and blanched meat, and place on heat. Right before reaching a boil (around 80 degrees), turn to low heat. Simmer for 30 minutes, turn off stove and cool meat to room temperature in pot.

4. Separate vegetables from simmered broth. Run vegetables through food processer to make savory sauce. When meat has cooled, remove cooking string and cut into appropriate size.

5. Serve on plate with savory sauce and garnish with shiso leaf if available. Serve with Japanese mustard to taste.

About 180 kcal and 1.4 grams salt per portion

(Nutrient calculation by the Nutrition Clinic of Kagawa Nutrition University)

When storing, the flavor will last if the meat is kept in a container with the simmered broth.

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