Chapter 17: The 100 Chefs (3)
Chapter 17: The 100 Chefs (3)
The catfish mixture looked like a white background dotted with green. Frankly, it was neither striking nor particularly attractive, but meatballs usually looked like that. Plain, almost boring, and not especially appetising at first glance. Rather than being a disadvantage, that simplicity was part of their character.
Jo Minjoon shaped the mixture into rounds between his thumb and forefinger, then placed them in the steamer. He intended to cook them that way.
The next step was to prepare the stew properly. Jo Minjoon thinly sliced the garlic and scallions, greased a wok, and began frying them. This did not mean he had suddenly changed the direction of the dish. Before adding the broth, he wanted to build a layer of flavour in oil first, and depending on how that was done, the quality of the heat and spice in the final stew could change considerably.
Once the garlic and scallions had cooked to the right point, Jo Minjoon added the onions. Because they had been sliced horizontally, they quickly softened and lost their firmness in the scorching wok. Then it was time for the broth.
Jo Minjoon lined a sieve with cotton cloth and poured the broth through it. He held the sieve in one hand and the pot in the other. There was not much broth, but the position was still awkward enough to be bothersome.
The moment the strained broth hit the hot oil in the wok, it gave off a fierce sizzling sound. At the same time, a deep aroma rose into the air. The contestants working nearby could not help turning their heads. The scent was that rich.
Jo Minjoon knew immediately that he had succeeded.
He could tell simply from the smell. It was not only because he had made the dish many times before. The aroma itself carried the flavour: the freshness of the vegetables and the distinctive clean taste of the catfish.
Of course, he still had to taste it to check the seasoning. Jo Minjoon adjusted it with soy sauce and salt. He could not use too much soy sauce. It added seasoning, but too much would darken the broth considerably. That did not mean he could simply use salt instead, either. The saltiness of plain salt and the flavour of soy sauce were completely different. Soy sauce did not provide only saltiness; it also had its own fermented sharpness and depth.
At this point, the dish was already close to finished, but Jo Minjoon did not want to stop there. If he served nothing more than broth and meatballs, he could not help remembering Alan’s earlier criticism of his plating.
So he decided to make fried catfish skin.
Jo Minjoon coated the skin he had peeled earlier in starch, then fried it in an oiled pan. It did not take long. Once the pale, crisp pieces of catfish skin were finished, he set them aside on the counter.
Now all he had to do was wait.
Jo Minjoon looked around at the other contestants, who were still preparing their dishes. His gaze moved from station to station before eventually stopping on one person.
Kaya.
Flames surged up from her frying pan around whatever she was cooking. Was she making a Chinese dish?
Jo Minjoon searched his memory.
She was probably making tangsuyuk.
(Translator’s Note: Tangsuyuk —A Korean-Chinese dish of battered or starch-coated meat fried until crisp and served with a sweet-and-sour sauce. It developed through Chinese immigrant restaurant culture in Korea during the twentieth century and is most commonly made with pork. In these chapters, Kaya prepares a catfish version.)
Although Kaya was British-American, her cooking was not limited to Western cuisine. She could prepare an extraordinarily wide range of dishes.
That versatility was connected to the background she had talked about on the programme. From a young age, Kaya had helped her mother sell fruit. While other children her age played with toys and dolls, she spent her time around merchants in the market. That experience had contributed enormously to the development of her palate because she had been exposed to all sorts of ingredients and foods that most people would rarely see, much less taste.
Of course, if an ordinary person had grown up in the same circumstances, they might have learned about a wide variety of ingredients without ever understanding their flavours deeply. Market food was usually simple, and even the more elaborate dishes were hardly more complicated than the grilled eel Kaya had prepared during the preliminaries.
Kaya, however, did not taste food the way ordinary people did. Differences too slight for others to notice were obvious to her. A single grain of salt could stand out to her like a spoonful. Even when seasoning the same dish, one adjustment from Kaya could make it noticeably better. With an ability like that, the market had been the perfect school for her.
Even the way she approached cooking was different. If a part-time worker at a grilled-skewer stall turned meat according to a memorised recipe, Kaya could instinctively understand how long each side had been exposed to heat and how the thickness of each cut would affect the cooking. She did not analyse those things consciously. She simply understood them.
She had been born with it. There was no other explanation.
A strange thought occurred to Jo Minjoon. He wanted to be a judge. He wanted to sit in the judges’ place and taste Kaya’s food himself. Quite apart from the cooking, there was something special about knowing that a dish had been prepared by Kaya Lotus.
While he was watching her, Alan approached his station. After glancing at the pots over the flame, he asked, “What are you making?”
“Catfish meatball stew.”
“Catfish meatball stew? Hmm… Did you fry this skin?”
“Yes. A long time ago, I saw people in Southeast Asia eat it as a snack.”
“Do you think it suits your dish?”
“Yes. It does.”
Jo Minjoon answered with considerable confidence. Even Alan seemed slightly surprised by it. He had judged every previous season, yet he had rarely seen a contestant this self-assured. Even people who cooked well tended to lose confidence once they stood in front of the judges.
Alan frowned. Usually, there were two possibilities with someone like this. Either they genuinely possessed the experience and talent to justify their confidence, or they knew how to make food taste good but had not yet learned how to make the most of their abilities.
Frankly, Alan suspected the latter.
Jo Minjoon was young. By American age reckoning, he was only twenty-one. For someone without formal culinary training to speak with such certainty about his own dish, he seemed almost too young to justify that confidence.
“…I hope your dish turns out as good as your confidence suggests.”
With that, Alan walked away.
Jo Minjoon could tell that Alan had not taken his confidence particularly well, but he did not care. He intended to let the dish speak for itself.
The allotted time was nearly over.
Quite a few contestants had already been eliminated for mistakes made during preparation. There were nearly twenty of them.
Jo Minjoon opened the steamer and removed the meatballs. Fortunately, they were perfectly cooked. The moment the lid came off, the aroma of fish, tofu, and coriander rose into the air. It smelled so appealing that he immediately wanted to taste one.
So he did.
A smile appeared on Jo Minjoon’s face.
Was it satisfaction because the dish had turned out well, or simply the instinctive smile that came from eating something delicious?
Either way, the conclusion was the same.
The meatball was perfect.
Jo Minjoon poured the broth into a shallow bowl and arranged the meatballs in it. He placed the fried catfish skin on top as a garnish, though visually the dish still looked fairly plain. Perhaps Alan would criticise his presentation again.
Even so, Jo Minjoon had no intention of piling on unnecessary garnishes just to make the plate look more impressive. If he chased momentary visual pleasure at the expense of the taste, the entire exercise would become meaningless.
“Stop! Everyone, hands off! Time is over.”
Alan’s sharp voice rang through the room.
Sighs sounded from every direction. Some were sighs of relief, while others were full of despair.
Jo Minjoon glanced towards Kaya. Nothing had changed from what he remembered. In front of her sat a perfectly finished plate of catfish tangsuyuk.
The judging began immediately.
Many contestants had already been eliminated during preparation, but there were still around sixty left. There was no time to drag the process out, so in some cases the judges did not even taste the dishes. They evaluated them based on obvious technical faults, such as whether the interior had been cooked properly.
As the judging continued, Jo Minjoon began to feel something strange.
People were being eliminated right in front of him, one after another. Sometimes it was because of a poor cut. Other times, a single bite was enough.
The scene somehow seemed to encapsulate the world of chefs.
Cooking.
A world where everything ultimately depended on that one thing.
There were no words of sympathy or encouragement. Only it’s delicious or it isn’t. Sometimes the judges even dumped an entire dish straight into the bin.
Those actions could reduce a contestant to tears, but Jo Minjoon understood why they did it. Ingredients placed in the wrong hands and turned into something that could barely be called food were being wasted. For someone who dreamed of becoming a chef, that was unacceptable.
Eventually, it was Jo Minjoon’s turn.
The judges looked over his catfish meatball stew, then tasted it.
The fried catfish skin crunched between their teeth as they chewed the soft meatballs. None of the three said anything at first. They simply continued eating, then each took a sip of the broth.
Joseph was the first to speak.
“It’s delicious.”