Chapter 505: Confrontation (4)
Chapter 505: Confrontation (4)
In truth, Kaya’s daily life was deeply intertwined with cooking. She didn’t spend every moment in the kitchen the way Minjoon did—who seemed to treat cooking like a daily homework assignment—but she devoted just as much time to thinking about cooking.
That was why, late one night in the empty kitchen, she found herself imitating Minjoon, trying to develop her own recipe.
I wish I had done a little better...
Though she knew how pointless it was to dwell on hypotheticals, she couldn’t stop obsessing over the thought. Perhaps it gnawed at her all the more because she feared she might be hindering Minjoon, whose success she desperately wanted to support.
Yet instinctively, she felt her cooking skills were not that much inferior to his. In fact, when it came to senses and ideas for cooking, she might even be ahead. Their usual conversations about cooking had proved that.
If so, why hadn’t she achieved as much success as Minjoon? Was it just bad luck?
She had to admit honestly that she wasn’t as driven as him in cooking. Minjoon fought every day to improve, as if someone was chasing him. Sometimes she pitied how tense his life was, how he rarely took a break. She believed success born from stress without joy was hollow. But she didn’t realise she tended to avoid the sort of punishing challenges Minjoon embraced gladly every day.
I have to work harder from now on.
Lost in such thoughts, she pulled sous-vide beef from a pot, sliced it paper-thin, and placed it over oysters she’d gently boiled. She served it with celery jelly and a powdered sauce made from wasabi and mandarins.
She wasn’t always happy beside Minjoon, but as her cooking slowly began to resemble his, she found herself blending his style into hers.
The molecular gastronomy she executed so effortlessly proved how much time she'd spent absorbing his methods before realising it.
She picked up an oyster shell, scooped jelly, sauce, beef, and oyster, and put them in her mouth at once. A satisfied smile spread across her face.
I should add this to Irregular Lab’s menu.
Thinking this, she smiled.
Some suggested to Minjoon and Kaya, publishers of Jotus Guide, a cook-off against the chefs at Wasabi. But that wasn’t about relative skills—for such contests, absolute skill was key.
I wish I had something like Jo Reggiano...
If she did, she’d be trusted like Minjoon was. So she hunted desperately for that dream recipe idea.
Well, no point lamenting now...
She pulled herself together and scanned the ingredients, desperate to piece together inspiration. During this, she pondered what her own cooking truly was.
Minjoon calculated taste magnification—detecting subtle differences to amplify flavours people thought were uniform. What about Kaya? Was smoke the only taste she could elevate? Was that truly her best?
Even if smoke was her strength, she couldn’t afford complacency. She needed to create and reveal more—to show she wasn’t a chef to be underestimated.
She thought about it all night, her hands busy in the kitchen. She crafted hundreds of recipes but failed dozens. Yet failure didn’t faze her—she accepted it was part of the process.
What mattered was one big success, like Minjoon’s Jo Reggiano—his signature dessert that won universal admiration. She needed a dish to give her immense joy.
However, her attempts to create a Jo Reggiano-like masterpiece failed day after day. Bags formed under her eyes, her cheeks hollowed, and tears welled up. Anxiety and restlessness consumed her.
But finally, after enduring trial and error, she smiled happily.
“It’s delicious.”
It was a great success.
In some ways, her dish was similar to Jo Reggiano. She cooked six kinds of meat sous vide, then served them with parsley air, onion jam, apple chutney, and yellow and red paprika jelly.
Like Jo Reggiano, she included six meats: cotecino sausage (made from pork), ox head, ox tongue, brisket, pork cheek, and oxtail. The oxtail and ox head were boiled at 63°C for 36 hours; pork cheek, ox tongue, and brisket at 63°C for 24 hours; and cotecino at 63°C for 16 hours.
Though the cooking times differed, it was due to the nature of the ingredients rather than an attempt to create flavour contrasts.
The parsley air, seasoned slightly with salt, sugar, and tangerines, held parsley’s unique flavor and tangerine freshness. The red and yellow pepper jelly, arranged like the French flag, was seasoned with onion jam alongside the meat and apple chutney.
She ate the meats one by one, pairing them with jelly, air, chutney, and jam. Each bite made her sigh in delight.
Now, she felt confident she could not craft a better recipe. Just as Minjoon hadn’t improved on Jo Reggiano, this recipe was her miracle.
Excited, she leapt up and opened the door lightly, like a child chasing a Christmas present. She flopped onto the bed where Minjoon was sleeping.
“Ouch!”
“Hey! I made it!”
“Gasp... gasp...”
“What on earth? What’s with you?”
Though she asked, he barely answered, staring at her blankly, distressed. Since she’d suddenly climbed on his stomach, breathing was hard. He had been sleeping soundly until she stormed in.
She spoke calmly as if nothing unusual happened: “I made it! I finally created a recipe I love. Wake up! It’s a jackpot!”
“A jackpot? Oops... Don’t you know you’re still on my stomach?”
“Oh, sorry.”
She coolly showed her palm, climbed off, stood, and smiled as she pulled his arm.
“Wake up! I made the dish. Quick! Hurry!”
“What the hell are you doing at this hour?”
“You do this all the time!”
She retorted playfully. He couldn’t argue, wriggling beneath the blanket.
He was reluctant to get up, sneakingly pulling the blanket over himself and trying to draw her under too.
But she squinted and shouted, “Wake up right now or I’ll punch you!”
“Okay…”
When she showed her fist, he gave in. Rubbing his sleepy eyes, he sat up as she dragged him toward the kitchen.
“You’ll be amazed when you try it!”
“So, how long did it take to create this dish?”
“One minute.”
“One minute?”
He couldn’t understand. She wasn’t joking; the dish did take only a minute to assemble. Soon, he understood why.
“Man, all these ingredients last a long time!” he muttered disappointedly.
The jelly, chutney, and jam could be made in advance and kept for a while. Sous vide is different but not a problem if pre-ordered and prepared quickly. But taste mattered most.
Minjoon slowly cut some jelly with an ox tongue slice and took a bite.
Immediately, he stopped chewing.
What is this?
He stared blankly, still incredulous at the exquisite flavour in his mouth. Suddenly sober, he detailed her freckles and black eyebrows. He recalled her cooking and today’s dish.
His chin moved slowly as the ox tongue juice rolled out. Gradually, he distinctly tasted the condensed sweetness of apple chutney mixing with the juice, the sourness of onion jam, and the delicate vinegar and sugar balance in the red and yellow pepper jelly.