Chapter 139: What a Kitchen Is (4)
Chapter 139: What a Kitchen Is (4)
Jo Minjoon put another bite of Alan’s linguine into his mouth.
The same faint sweetness was still there.
It was not the sweetness of sugar. Nor was it the sweetness of fruit.
Vegetables.
He could detect faint traces of the juices released from carrots, onions, and similar vegetables when they were cooked. Yet the only vegetables in the dish were the basil infused into the olive oil and the bok choy.
Could the bok choy alone produce this sweetness?
Jo Minjoon frowned.
Bok choy was not a particularly sweet vegetable. Its appeal lay more in its crisp texture and juicy stems, with flavour coming second. There was no way its sweetness alone could permeate the entire linguine like this.
There were no other vegetables in the dish.
The system clearly told him that much.
And yet, a flavour that could not possibly come from the listed ingredients remained in his mouth.
There were only two possibilities.
Either there was a blind spot in the system, or some unusual and highly unconventional technique was producing that sweetness. But unless this was something completely different, like molecular gastronomy, it was impossible to create this flavour from the listed ingredients alone.
What if they only used a vegetable to impart flavour, then removed it afterwards……?
That would make sense.
It would also explain why the system did not list the ingredient. In the end, it was not actually present in the finished dish. The full recipe might say that it was added and removed during cooking, but it would not be strange for the final ingredient list to omit it.
The important question was what they had used.
Jo Minjoon could tell that the sweetness came from a vegetable, but his palate could not identify anything beyond that.
He glanced sideways at Kaya.
He had a feeling that if anyone could figure it out, she might.
But Kaya was still staring at Alan’s pasta with a confused expression. Anderson, meanwhile, seemed to have given up thinking and returned to the workstation to cook another batch.
In the end, Jo Minjoon walked over to the refrigerator and examined the vegetables inside.
Alan came up beside him.
“You already took out all the ingredients earlier. Why are you back here?”
“……Alan. Don’t pretend when I can already see through it. I figured something out.”
“What?”
“The recipe you gave us before isn’t one hundred per cent complete.”
Alan silently looked at Jo Minjoon with an expression that seemed to say, Is that really so?
That expression only strengthened Jo Minjoon’s certainty.
The problem was determining which vegetable had been used.
Carrot. Radish. Courgette. Onion…… Which one could it be?
Those were the most likely candidates in the refrigerator.
Just then, Kaya, who had been watching Alan and Jo Minjoon suspiciously, quietly sidled up beside him and cleared her throat.
“Why are you still standing here?”
“And why did you come over?”
“That’s an invasion of privacy.”
Kaya gave the completely unreasonable answer and turned her head away.
Jo Minjoon stepped aside.
“Choose.”
“……You’re not going to pick anything?”
“Then keep standing there.”
Jo Minjoon shrugged.
Kaya bit her lip and alternated between staring at Jo Minjoon and the refrigerator. Even at a glance, it was obvious she wanted to take something, but apparently she did not want to reveal what it was while he was watching.
Kaya licked her lips anxiously and bumped his arm with her shoulder.
“You really aren’t leaving?”
“No.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
Jo Minjoon widened his eyes exaggeratedly as he answered.
Kaya pouted, then muttered miserably,
“Your palate is more precise than mine, so why are you doing this?”
“Your tongue is better than mine.”
“Hmph.”
She wrinkled her nose, then reached out with fingers as pale as peach flesh.
What she grabbed was a bag of Brussels sprouts.
Jo Minjoon let out a small exclamation.
Kaya hugged the bag against herself like a child, then glanced suspiciously at him.
Jo Minjoon smirked.
“Are you going to use all of those?”
“……Why?”
“Let me have some too.”
“Hey! Are you seriously going to be this shameless?”
“Alan told us before that a kitchen is like a tiny country. So plundering should be perfectly normal.”
“Even plundering has limits! Fine, then let’s do this. One minute after I start cooking……”
Kaya’s expression suddenly darkened in the middle of her sentence.
At the end of her gaze stood Anderson.
Apparently his latest attempt at linguine had failed, because he was approaching them with a twisted smile. His eyes were fixed firmly on the Brussels sprouts in Kaya’s hands.
“That’s an interesting thing you’re holding.”
Kaya muttered blankly,
“……I’m doomed.”
Apparently giving up on protecting her discovery, Kaya quickly took the amount she needed.
Perhaps out of spite, or perhaps simply trying to buy herself even a few extra seconds, she tightly sealed the remaining Brussels sprouts, shoved the bag deep into the refrigerator, and ran back towards her workstation.
Jo Minjoon retrieved the bag and returned to his own station, organising his thoughts.
If Kaya had chosen Brussels sprouts, there was a high probability that they really were part of the recipe.
The problem was how they had been used without appearing in the ingredient list.
More precisely, how could they extract the flavour of Brussels sprouts without leaving them in the finished dish?
That was the question.
Kaya had already begun boiling the Brussels sprouts in water.
Apparently, she intended to make vegetable stock.
Thinking about it, the idea was obvious. If she wanted to draw out the flavour thoroughly, stock was the quickest method.
But Jo Minjoon was certain it was wrong.
If she made stock that way, the system would list ‘vegetable stock’ among the ingredients.
It had not.
More importantly, even as he mentally reconstructed Kaya’s recipe, the system still predicted a cooking score of 9.
In another corner, Anderson was grating Brussels sprouts and squeezing out their juice.
Apparently, he intended to use it like a sauce.
Jo Minjoon was equally certain that was wrong.
“Minjoon. Why aren’t you cooking?”
“I’m building the recipe in my head. I’m trying to figure out what would produce the closest flavour to Alan’s. What recipe would come nearest.”
“You can do that just by thinking……?”
Alan looked exhausted.
Of course, once chefs accumulated enough experience, they could roughly predict how a recipe would taste simply by constructing it mentally.
But only to a certain extent.
What Jo Minjoon was attempting now was to compare extremely faint differences in flavour.
They said he possessed an absolute sense of taste, but was his tongue the only extraordinary thing?
Could he actually imagine those tiny distinctions in his head and compare them?
……He’s the Beethoven of the culinary world.
Jo Minjoon had no idea how far Alan’s misunderstanding had gone.
He answered calmly.
“I’ve calculated that the dish I’m about to make should be right. If you judge my linguine to be no different from the one served here, then I’ll know I was correct.”
Jo Minjoon placed the linguine into boiling water.
While it cooked, he began slicing the squid and bok choy again.
For beginners, controlling the timing was one of the hardest parts. They had to prepare the vegetables and sauté them in a heated pan before the pasta overcooked.
For Jo Minjoon, however, it was not particularly difficult.
At first glance, his knife work looked plain. But he never made a single unnecessary movement.
Calmly, steadily, without stopping.
It took him only a minute to halve and prepare the squid and trim ten stalks of bok choy.
Jo Minjoon heated the pan, poured in olive oil, then ground basil into it.
After that came the Brussels sprouts.
The round little cabbages rolled around the pan like balls while their fragrance and flavour began seeping into the oil.
Then the squid and bok choy joined them.
But not long afterwards, Jo Minjoon removed every Brussels sprout from the pan.
That was why they had not appeared among the ingredients.
Alan let out a low groan inwardly.
He had only wondered whether Jo Minjoon might manage it.
Yet he really was reconstructing Alan’s recipe.
Not by directly identifying the flavour, but by imagining it.
If this young man had only received proper instruction from the beginning, there would have been nothing strange about him already being the head chef of a famous restaurant.
After all, Rachel’s husband Daniel had become a head chef at twenty-one.
Kaya tasted the linguine she had made and frowned.
She did not even bother taking it to Alan. Instead, she turned to watch Jo Minjoon cook.
Anderson did the same.
The juice from the Brussels sprouts had not given his pasta a faint sweetness. It had made the whole thing taste unmistakably of cabbage.
Would Jo Minjoon really succeed?
They felt both anticipation and the selfish desire for him to fail.
Because they wanted to win.
But the moment Jo Minjoon finished plating his linguine, both of them unconsciously approached with forks already in hand.
Kaya looked anxious.
“I can eat it, right?”
Jo Minjoon did not answer.
He was staring softly into empty space.
A chill ran through Kaya.
There was nothing there.
Yet he was looking as though something really existed in front of him……
For a moment, she was genuinely afraid he might have been possessed by a ghost.
Kaya cautiously placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Minjoon?”
“Uh, huh?”
“Why did you suddenly space out? Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I just thought the dish came out well. Go ahead and eat.”
“How do you know when you haven’t even tasted it……”
Grumbling, Kaya twirled the linguine around her fork and took a bite.
A strange expression immediately appeared on her face.
Her lips were smiling while her eyes were frowning.
It was perfect.
Exactly the same flavour as Alan’s.
The taste itself made her want to smile, but losing made her want to do anything but.
Anderson and Alan tasted it after her.
Both nodded.
Alan opened his mouth as though he were about to say something, but instead let out a long sigh.
“I even prepared for the possibility that you wouldn’t figure it out before dinner…… This feels almost pointless. It took me more than a month to develop this dish.”
“I had a very good reference.”
Jo Minjoon smirked and pointed towards Alan’s pasta.
Then he looked down at his own linguine, his eyes filled with emotion.
He had reached a score of 10 using someone else’s recipe and the strength of Alfredo’s pasta……
But even so, this was the first time he had personally produced a ten-point dish.
Someday, with my own ability. With my own recipe……
In the past, whenever he made that kind of resolution, the road ahead had seemed completely dark.
Now, he felt as though he might truly be able to reach it someday.
Was this how an adventurer felt after finding a treasure map?
His chest burned as though he were a youth suffering from a terrible fever.
Behind Jo Minjoon, Kaya narrowed her eyes like a cat, then eventually smiled as though there were nothing she could do about it.
Alan noticed.
In truth, Kaya had been the first one to identify the Brussels sprouts.
That meant her sense of taste was far too sensitive to be called ordinary.
If those two ever stand in the same kitchen……
The synergy would probably be extraordinary.
Saliva gathered in Alan’s mouth.
He stood in kitchens because he loved cooking, but he loved eating just as much.
Simply imagining what kind of dishes the two might create together was exciting.
“So Minjoon won?”
“That’s right. Which means the two of you will assist Minjoon.”
At Alan’s words, Anderson put some of his own linguine into his mouth.
Even though it had failed, apparently he could not bear to throw away food he had made himself.
And in any case, it was still a nine-point dish.
It was more than delicious enough.
I wanted to show Teacher Rachel that I’d won.
It was disappointing, but there was nothing he could do.
Jo Minjoon felt a thirst whenever he looked at Kaya.
And Anderson felt the same thirst whenever he looked at Jo Minjoon.
Although Anderson had achieved better results in Grand Chef, in the end……
The world’s attention, and Rachel’s, were both directed towards Jo Minjoon.
It felt like staring at a wall he could not overcome.
He knew that cooking was not a competition against others, but against himself.
Yet whenever he stood beside Jo Minjoon, Anderson felt as though he were slowly sinking into a thick, muddy swamp.
Anderson opened his mouth.
Hesitation and inferiority rose through his half-parted lips like steam.
But Anderson was not weak enough to surrender to that pain.
He steadied his gaze and looked directly at Jo Minjoon.
“……You really are amazing.”
“Thanks.”
Jo Minjoon answered awkwardly.
It felt like the first time Anderson himself had ever complimented him.
No.
It did not feel like a simple compliment.
The emotions carried in his voice felt familiar.
They resembled the feelings Jo Minjoon himself experienced whenever he looked at Kaya.
Anderson was young and straightforward.
Because of that, he did not bother disguising his ambition or competitiveness.
“Just wait until next time. I’ll definitely beat you.”