Chapter 18: The 100 Chefs (4)
Chapter 18: The 100 Chefs (4)
Those words did not need to be long. There was no phrase quite as magical as it’s delicious. At that short comment, Jo Minjoon felt his heart begin pounding again. The judges did not waste any more words on him and moved on to continue evaluating the others.
Jo Minjoon looked down at his catfish meatball stew. There had been no mistakes.
[Catfish Meatball Stew]
Freshness: 93%
Origins: (Too many ingredients to determine)
Quality: High (Average ingredients)
Cooking Score: 7/10
Jo Minjoon turned towards the judges. Kaya’s turn was coming up soon.
Her dish was catfish tangsuyuk with red sauce. The judges each took a bite and immediately declared it delicious before moving on. Even Kaya could not make them stay any longer, since there were still too many contestants left to evaluate.
Jo Minjoon looked at Kaya’s catfish tangsuyuk. The system showed that it was a seven-point dish. Once he had discovered that her Cooking Level was seven, he had assumed most of the dishes she made would probably score around seven as well.
Even so, at that moment, Jo Minjoon felt an unusually strong temptation to go over and taste Kaya’s dish himself. He had already eaten a nine-point dish at a Michelin-starred restaurant, so there was no reason for him to covet a mere seven-point dish. In the first place, seven points was a score he could achieve himself as long as he cooked without mistakes. Yet Kaya’s catfish tangsuyuk was still strangely enticing simply because Kaya had made it.
What chefs placed on a plate was not merely food. Their own name, their own brand, went onto the plate with it. Jo Minjoon wondered what kind of flavour the name Kaya Lotus might add to a dish.
Of course, he could not simply run over and start eating her food in the middle of judging. The atmosphere in the room was far too serious. Even at that moment, contestants were still being eliminated, and those who were told their dishes were not delicious left the room looking utterly drained.
Once the judges finished their evaluations, they returned to the platform. Emily smiled and spoke in a calm voice, as though nothing particularly dramatic had happened.
“Congratulations. What you passed earlier was a qualification round, but now you’ve passed the real qualification round as well. You were selected once, and now you’ve been selected again from among those who were chosen.”
Jo Minjoon quietly looked around. There were not many people left. Around thirty, perhaps not even that many. A single round of judging had eliminated almost everyone else.
Joseph, standing beside Emily, began to speak. “The reason you survived today is simple. You know how to handle ingredients, and you know how to make them taste good. Those are the most important qualities a chef needs. You have the fundamentals. You are chefs.”
Jo Minjoon thought Joseph was remarkably good with words. Just when his pounding heart had finally started to calm down, hearing Joseph call him a chef made it race all over again. He felt almost like a high-school student who had fallen in love.
“There is an enormous difference between someone who cooks and a chef. From now on, you have to carry that responsibility on the tips of your knives. The responsibility to make food delicious. The responsibility not to ruin ingredients. I hope you can hold on to that responsibility until the very end.”
Silence settled over the room. Jo Minjoon bit his lip as he watched the judges, and Alan spoke next.
“The next mission will take place in two days. Until then, you are free to stay in the rooms provided inside the Grand Chef building. Naturally, you may also use all the ingredients in the kitchen until the day you are eliminated. I hope you make good use of that time.”
With that, the judges left, and the contestants began filing out as well. Everyone looked exhausted, which was only natural. Having cameras installed around the cooking stations and trained on them constantly had placed more pressure on them than it seemed.
Jo Minjoon, however, did not leave. There was still some catfish meatball stew left, and since the dish had turned out well, he could not bring himself to throw it into the bin. He transferred the remaining stew to another bowl. There were six meatballs left, so he poured in the broth, arranged the meatballs, and placed the fried catfish skin on top.
Then he carried it over to Kaya.
She was one of the few contestants who had also remained at her station. Jo Minjoon suspected she was thinking the same thing he was. Anyone who genuinely cared about cooking would find it difficult to casually throw away a dish they had made properly.
As Jo Minjoon approached, Kaya narrowed her eyes and stared sharply at him. She was under 170 centimetres tall. Even wearing high heels, she was still at least a hand shorter than Jo Minjoon.
“Do you know about bartering?” he asked.
“…What’s that?”
“A custom of our ancestors. I’d like to experience it. How about you?”
As he spoke, Jo Minjoon glanced meaningfully between her catfish tangsuyuk and his catfish meatball stew. Kaya let out an awkward laugh.
“You want to trade?”
“I mean, we could share.”
“What if yours isn’t good?”
“The judges said it was.”
Kaya looked at him defiantly, but the words that came out of her mouth did not match her expression.
“Fine.”
She raised one finger and spoke in a provocative tone. “One meatball for one piece of tangsuyuk.”
Again, the words did not quite match the expression she was making. Jo Minjoon smiled brightly.
“Sounds fair.”
Jo Minjoon stood beside her and picked up a piece of tangsuyuk with his fork. It was unmistakably a seven-point dish. The moment he tasted it, he felt something burst pleasantly inside his head. There was nothing strange or unpleasant about it. The foundations of the dish were simply perfect.
The sauce was strong, and an herbal aroma lingered throughout his mouth. The catfish had been cooked perfectly, leaving the flesh moist and tender. Because catfish was so delicate and could break apart almost like tofu, Jo Minjoon had expected it to crumble, but it held together beautifully. The crisp fried coating, softened slightly by the sauce, paired naturally with the mild flavour of the fish, while the sweetness of the sauce brought everything together.
Jo Minjoon checked the recipe. There was nothing particularly unusual about it. It was the sort of standard tangsuyuk recipe that would appear immediately in an internet search. Lemon was used to suppress the fishy smell, and sweet-potato starch and potato starch were mixed at a seven-to-three ratio. The important point was controlling the amount of cooking oil used.
The rest of the process was equally ordinary. The fish was fried, then vinegar, sugar, soy sauce, and starch water were boiled together until thickened. Vegetables and chilli powder were added to the sauce and cooked briefly, and that was all.
For such an ordinary recipe to reach seven points meant that Kaya’s execution and instincts were simply that exceptional.
Jo Minjoon slowly savoured the tangsuyuk before speaking.
“It’s delicious.”
“…Yours too.”
Perhaps she was not accustomed to compliments, because Kaya answered awkwardly. Jo Minjoon found the situation strangely surreal. The person he had once watched only through a television screen was now standing beside him and telling him that his cooking was delicious.
If there were a moment that could make someone truly feel that their life had changed, this was probably it. It seemed as though he had moved one step closer to his dream.
Then another thought suddenly occurred to him.
What exactly was his dream? Was it to make delicious food, or was it to become a famous chef?
He did not dwell on the question for long. Kaya was already speaking again, her face slightly flushed.
“I’m having another one.”
“What?”
“One more meatball. So you eat another piece of my tangsuyuk too.”
Right. This was bartering.
Jo Minjoon laughed and tightened his grip on his fork. Whether he ended up making delicious food or becoming a famous chef, if he could continue cooking with the same feelings he had right now…