Chapter 26: Getting Help in the Face of Elimination (1)
Chapter 26: Getting Help in the Face of Elimination (1)
The reason Kaya looked at Jo Minjoon and asked him to be her partner was simple. They could not exactly be called close, but there was at least some degree of friendship between them. She had not considered Jo Minjoon’s skills or anything of the sort. She simply needed someone she could feel comfortable with.
Jo Minjoon, however, could not help hesitating as he looked at her. He remembered the theme of the next mission.
Foie gras.
(Translator’s Note: Foie gras —The enlarged liver of a specially fattened duck or goose and an important ingredient in French haute cuisine. The practice of deliberately fattening waterfowl for enlarged livers can be traced back to ancient Egypt and was later practised by Greeks and Romans before becoming particularly associated with French cuisine. Foie gras may be seared whole or prepared as pâté, terrine, or mousse.)
He knew how it was supposed to be prepared, but he had never cooked it himself. The same was true for Kaya. There was no way someone who had grown up in the ghetto would have had the chance to cook foie gras before.
The reason Kaya had survived this challenge in the future Jo Minjoon remembered was because the partner she had chosen had been Chloe. Chloe knew how to prepare foie gras and had even cooked it before.
Jo Minjoon was different.
That was why he hesitated. Reaching out to help Kaya without being capable of actually helping her might only produce an outcome neither of them wanted. He could end up causing her elimination when she had never been destined to leave here in the first place.
And this was not some insignificant elimination.
It could change Kaya’s entire life.
He needed to refuse.
He had to.
It was for Kaya’s sake.
That was what he told himself.
Yet by the next moment, Jo Minjoon was already walking down the stairs.
With every step, his thoughts became more tangled. Why was he doing this? This decision was not truly for anyone’s benefit. Playing the good person could put Kaya’s future, her career, and all the money she would eventually earn at risk.
And yet he could not stop walking.
Jo Minjoon approached Kaya with a stiff expression. It was not too late. He could still tell her now that he was not confident.
But the moment he looked at her face, the words would not come out.
Joseph spoke first. “Minjoon. Are you willing to be Kaya’s partner?”
“...Let me ask her something first.” Jo Minjoon turned towards Kaya. Her sky-blue eyes looked darker than usual. When he spoke, his voice carried the measured tone of a teacher addressing a student. “Choosing me could be a mistake. Are you sure you won’t regret it?”
“...I don’t know.” Kaya answered quietly. Her voice sounded weak, almost like someone suffering from a cold. “I just... I just thought of you. I thought you could help me.”
In another situation, the words might have sounded strangely romantic. Right now, however, they only sounded tired and dejected.
Jo Minjoon looked at her for a long moment.
Then his expression changed as though he had finally made up his mind.
The future he remembered no longer mattered.
What mattered was that Kaya was asking him for help right now.
The chef he had always admired, the person he had once looked up to from afar, was standing in front of him and asking for his help.
How could he refuse to take her hand?
“Okay. Let’s do it.”
“...Thank you.” Kaya answered without much strength.
Joseph watched the two of them for a moment, then clapped his hands. Once everyone had turned towards him, he spoke.
“Now that the teams are complete, I’ll announce the mission. Everyone, go to your assigned worktops and check the box placed there.”
Jo Minjoon and Kaya moved to the worktop furthest away. An insulated box about the size of an apple crate sat on top.
Jo Minjoon already knew what was inside.
Foie gras.
Kaya hurriedly opened the lid.
It was exactly as he remembered. Inside the box lay a vacuum-sealed piece of frozen foie gras.
Several of the elimination candidates let out sighs. It was only natural. Foie gras was one of the more difficult ingredients to handle. It was as expensive as premium meat, yet if prepared badly, it could become little more than an unpleasant lump of liver.
Foie gras.
The name sounded refined enough, but in the end, it was liver.
And like the liver of any living creature, it carried a strong, distinctive smell. Calling it an aroma might even have been too generous. The real challenge of foie gras was removing or controlling that odour while bringing out the richness that made the ingredient prized in the first place.
“...I don’t know how to do this.”
Beside him, Kaya muttered anxiously. She was biting her lip, clearly trying not to show how nervous she was, but the tension in her expression only made it more obvious.
Jo Minjoon lowered his voice. There was something naturally reassuring about his tone.
“I’ve never cooked it before either. No, wait. Don’t make that face. We can do this. Kaya, you’ve cooked chicken liver or beef liver before, right?”
Jo Minjoon was trying to calm her down.
Kaya nodded, still looking uneasy.
“I have. But foie gras is different.”
“Even if it’s different, it’s still liver. Listen, this—”
Before Jo Minjoon could continue, Alan’s voice rang through the room.
“What you see in front of you is the theme of this mission. Foie gras. However, the two of you will not be allowed to prepare it at the same time. You must switch cooks every five minutes, and when it is not your turn, you may only help through verbal instructions.”
Uneasy murmurs spread through the room.
Even excluding Jo Minjoon and Kaya, plenty of contestants were unfamiliar with foie gras. For amateurs to have experience handling such an ingredient was unusual to begin with. It was not something people casually bought and cooked at home.
Anderson was probably one of the few who might have handled it before.
On top of that, having to switch cooks every five minutes pushed the difficulty of the mission even higher.
“We’ll give you twenty minutes to decide on your recipe,” Alan continued. “After that, you’ll have sixty minutes to cook.”
Jo Minjoon looked at Kaya. “Let’s roast it.”
The suggestion was brief, but Kaya understood immediately. She had never cooked foie gras herself, but that did not mean she had never studied it. Even she had looked into ingredients she had not yet had the opportunity to use.
There were two main approaches she knew of.
The first was to roast or sear the foie gras.
The second was to process it with seasonings and make it into a pâté or mousse.
(Translator’s Note: Pâté — French for a preparation of seasoned meat, poultry, fish, or offal processed into a paste or forcemeat. The word originally referred particularly to fillings cooked in pastry, from French pâte, “dough/pastry”, but later came to encompass preparations served without a crust. Pâté became an established component of French charcuterie and classical cuisine over several centuries.)
Realistically, however, pâté was not an option Jo Minjoon could choose right now. Neither he nor Kaya properly understood the flavour of foie gras yet. Taking an ingredient whose flavour they barely knew, mixing it with various seasonings, and turning it into pâté would be reckless. They would probably end up with something worse than cheap sausage from a market stall.
Kaya frowned. She understood why he had chosen roasting, but there was one problem.
“You seem to have forgotten that it’s frozen. I don’t know enough about foie gras to say for sure, but won’t the flavour suffer?”
“Modern freezing is done very quickly. It’s completely different from the freezers we use at home. If we handle it properly, being frozen shouldn’t make a major difference.”
Of course, there would still be some difference compared with fresh foie gras, but it would be more than good enough for roasting. In the first place, if the ingredient had been unsuitable for roasting, the challenge would have been specifically about making pâté or mousse instead.
More importantly, Jo Minjoon had another reason for choosing this method.
In the future he remembered, Kaya had roasted the foie gras too.
He could still recall the scene clearly.
Kaya had cooked it without ever having tasted it before, without ever having seen it prepared in person, relying entirely on her own instincts and methods.
It had been an incredibly difficult challenge.
And with that dish, Kaya had survived.
She had proven her worth.
Jo Minjoon wanted her to do the same this time.
He refused to let her be eliminated simply because he was standing beside her instead of Chloe.
They had to win.
That was why Jo Minjoon found himself taking the challenge even more seriously than Kaya.
“I promise you. I won’t let you get eliminated.”
“...Do whatever you want. I’m not planning on getting eliminated either.”
Kaya replied bluntly.
Jo Minjoon simply smiled.
For some reason, looking at her reminded him of his younger sister, Jo Ara. If someone came to him asking for help, he could not afford to become a burden instead.
Jo Minjoon closed his eyes.
The basic form of the dish was simple enough: roasted foie gras topped or accompanied with a purée.
In his head, he began constructing recipe after recipe using different kinds of purée.
As quickly as he imagined them, the system produced estimated cooking scores.
5 points.
4 points.
5 points.
5 points.
6 points.
5 points...
7 points.
