A Little Happiness
“To us—for all our hard work today!”
“To us!”
It had been a long time since we’d last gone out for a company dinner.
The customers who had thinned out were back, and the regulars were steadily increasing. Everyone was delighted by the hopeful turn of things. One by one, they set out the dishes they’d prepared ahead of time.
“All right, this is the loofah gourd soup we serve at the Hong Kong restaurant!”
“Huh? We had this for lunch today, didn’t we?”
“This one’s different. I added a little something. You’ll know when you taste it.”
“How different could it—wait, the color’s different?”
“Right? Try it.”
“Ohhh!”
Brother Jang had brought out a new variation of the loofah gourd soup.
He mixed gochujang and doenjang. Surprisingly harmonious.
Hong Kong cooking tended toward clear white broths. Home-style dishes especially were on the mild side, but he had broadened the flavor by adding Korean pastes.
He really does learn fast.
It looked like a simple tweak, but changing the seasoning was everything. When you considered that seasoning was the beginning and the end of a dish, he might as well have invented something brand new.
“One spoon of gochujang, one spoon of doenjang… and, um, you put a little hondashi in there too, didn’t you?”
“Hup…!?”
“And looking closer—you used pepper, but it’s not the usual store-bought kind, is it? The aroma’s different.”
“How did you know that?!”
“I just tasted it and figured it out.”
“Wow. Our Jinwoo should open his own place.”
“Hehe. Really?”
“I’m serious! That’s impressive!”
Jinwoo’s knack for picking out flavors was something special, too. To catch the new seasonings layered inside the distinctive scent of loofah gourd soup—that was no small feat. It was downright remarkable.
I knew his palate meshed well with my cooking, but is he just naturally gifted in this direction?
They say even a dog that hangs around a schoolhouse for three years can recite poetry. Our shop had only been open about three months. Yet he kept changing. His sense of taste was growing sharper by the day, and his knowledge of cooking was quietly expanding.
It wasn’t only Jinwoo who was improving. Everyone at the restaurant was developing, step by step.
Brother Woo’s coffee roasting has come a long way, too.
Ever since Brother Woo, who handled the coffee, had brought in a new roasting machine, he’d been like a kid with a new toy. He would take green beans and try all sorts of blends, and sometimes he’d attempt that re-roasting trick of mine and end up ruining expensive beans. All of it was becoming skill, though, and he was moving toward a higher grade of coffee than before.
“Huh? You want me to taste it again?”
“It’s because Ha-rang’s palate is so sharp. Just one sip!”
“Ugh… what if I can’t sleep later?”
“Weirdly enough, caffeine barely affects you, right? Please!”
“All right.”
Ha-rang occasionally helped him out, in her way. She, too, had started to show a little more ease.
Must be because she’s found some stability.
It was only a small restaurant, but the experience of building it together had given her a steadiness she hadn’t had before. Lately she wore a soft smile even when there was nothing particular going on.
I love seeing that.
For someone like me, whose previous life had been filled with nothing but hardship, it was a wonderful sight. It felt like I was filling the nightmares of the past with new, good memories.
And as Ha-rang grew more secure, her niece Yeon-hee had settled as well—or so I thought.
Hm…? What’s going on?
For some reason, Yeon-hee was wearing the look of a frightened kitten today.
Slumped shoulders. Eyes full of dread. Yeon-hee was staring at the dish in front of her as if it were some great nemesis.
“Yeon-hee?”
“Ah…!”
She looked up at me with those catlike eyes. For some reason, there even seemed to be tiny tears gathering in them.
“Why are you looking at the food like that?”
“Um… I can’t eat it.”
“Hm?”
What did that mean—she couldn’t eat it? This was the same Yeon-hee who would eat ramen until her stomach was about to burst. The same girl who always got scolded for eating too much. And now she was saying she couldn’t eat something?
“Are you feeling sick?”
“Not right now.”
“Then what?”
“It’s just… if I eat it, it’ll be hard.”
“Ah!”
Could it be that?
“You mean if you eat it, you get itchy and your eyes swell up?”
“……Yes.”
“What do you get that from?”
“Shrimp. A little bit is okay, but… big ones like this, I haven’t been able to eat them for a while. Yeah.”
I understood.
“A crustacean allergy, then?”
“That’s right. So my aunt says I absolutely mustn’t eat them! Hic…”
Yeon-hee’s face crumpled into the most pitiful expression in the world. Oh dear. She looked ready to cry any second.
“Shrimp… is so good… hic… it’s really so good.”
Yeon-hee loved food almost as much as Ha-rang did. For a girl like that to have a crustacean allergy—well, it wouldn’t have been strange if she’d burst into full-on wailing right then and there.
Adorable.
The way she looked so wronged over not being able to eat it was pretty cute. Still, I couldn’t just leave it like that.
Crustacean allergies really do drive people crazy.
Anyone who knows, knows. An allergy isn’t something you can shrug off as “just” anything. There’s anaphylaxis—a hypersensitive reaction that can send someone into shock. Without proper treatment, severe cases can even lead to death. And among allergies, crustaceans are especially tricky.
Sometimes it depends on the size. Sometimes horseshoe crab is fine but blue crab isn’t. Shrimp might be okay but crab isn’t. Complicated. Really complicated.
People with the allergy have to figure it out by eating, and the eating itself is an ordeal. I couldn’t put our cute Yeon-hee through that kind of suffering.
“Yeon-hee, do you really want to eat that shrimp?”
“It doesn’t have to be that shrimp.”
“Then?”
“I think I’d be happy with just the taste of shrimp… but I can’t, right? It’s been so long since I last had shrimp!”
“Oh, sweetheart. Is that so?”
“Yes. I just want one bite… but my aunt says no again, and if I eat it something bad will happen… hic…”
See? Yeon-hee was growing more and more forlorn by the second. When you’re little, not being able to eat something can leave a scar. I couldn’t let our Yeon-hee get any more heartbroken than this.
“Yeon-hee.”
“Yes?”
“Can you wait just a little bit? I’ll make it so you can eat something that tastes like shrimp.”
“Really?”
“Of course. I’ll whip up something that won’t make you sick. Just wait.”
“!!!!”
What else could I do? It was time to put in a little effort for the first time in a while. As I headed into the kitchen, Yeon-hee’s bright, excited “Yay!” rang out behind me.
The moment I stepped into the kitchen, I pulled out the ingredients.
Fish cake and starch. Those are the key.
The main ingredient was fish cake. Starch to mix in with it. Between the two of them, they would make up nearly the entire filling.
I was dumping most of the fish cake I had into the blender when a voice called out.
“Boss!”
“Hm?”
“What kind of amazing thing are you trying to pull off this time?”
“Amazing thing? Please.”
The voice belonged to Ha-rang, finally freed from Brother Woo. She was already tying her apron on tight.
“Why’d you come back? Go rest.”
“I overheard—you’re making something for Yeon-hee, right? That’s why I came.”
“Not because you’re worried she might get sick from the shrimp?”
“I am a little worried… but you’ll handle it just fine, won’t you?”
“Wow. Laying the pressure on thick!”
“Hehe. Caught me?”
“Yep. Caught you.”
Whirr—
While we talked, the fish cake finished pureeing. The white paste settled into a bowl, showing off the pure, milky color unique to top-grade fish cake.
“It’s so fine.”
“It may not look like much, but this is the highest grade. I had it set aside for the elders, actually. Didn’t expect to use it like this.”
I loosened egg white into the finely ground fish cake. Then I adjusted the viscosity with potato starch and added mayonnaise to push the fatty mouthfeel.
“What are you making?”
“Hmm. Shrimp without the shrimp?”
“Haha. What is that supposed to mean?”
“Just watch.”
Seasoning and mixing brought me to the first finish.
Aroma Enhancement
Ingredient Strengthening
And of course, I poured the skills on without holding back. Into the prepared dough I folded the remaining fish cake—the pieces I’d finely chopped while the blender was running. A little lemon juice and the rest of the seasonings completed the first stage.
Even before it was cooked, the distinctive fragrance of fish cake rose up, pleasant and inviting.
“Wow…”
While Ha-rang marveled at it, I thought, That should do it.
I scooped up a suitable amount of the dough and shaped it. Pressing the edges gently into rounds, I gradually got the form I wanted. That was when Ha-rang finally realized what the dish was.
“Is that a patty?”
“Oh. That’s right.”
“Don’t tell me—the shrimp without the shrimp was this?”
“Bingo! More precisely, I’m making a shrimp-free shrimp burger.”
“Waaah.”
A neat stack of well-formed patties piled up in front of me. Ordinarily I would have wrapped them and given them a rest period—time to stabilize. I replaced that step with a skill.
Aging
Accelerating aging speed.
Resting is aging, if you look at it broadly enough.
I used the skill to compress forty minutes of time at once. I couldn’t make Yeon-hee, who was already waiting expectantly at the table, sit there any longer.
Ha-rang seemed to sense something.
“Mm. Something feels different…”
She narrowed her eyes at the patties. Something had changed, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what. Fair enough—it wasn’t the kind of thing that showed to the naked eye.
“Good instincts.”
“You did something, didn’t you?”
“Who knows? Haha.”
I neither confirmed nor denied it. I coated the patties in the breading I’d prepared ahead of time and dropped them straight into a preheated pan.
Sizzle—
A satisfying frying sound rose up, and right behind it the distinctive aroma of fish cake spread far and wide.
“Whoa. What is that smell?”
“That’s nice.”
“Wow. Another new dish! Haha.”
With everyone’s expectations rising, I thought, Now.
When they looked about right, I melted butter for deeper flavor and slowly basted them. The richer scent left everyone silent, just breathing it in through their noses. Yeon-hee already had a fork in her hand, bouncing with excitement.
Adorable.
I smiled at the sight of her and pulled the patties from the pan. Now for the grand finale.
I split the buns I’d toasted earlier, settled a patty onto each, piled on tartar sauce and vegetables, and crowned them with the top bun.
“Ta-da!”
Out came the shrimp-free shrimp burgers.
Now then—wouldn’t this alone be a little bland?