Chapter 71: Footprints Before His Feet (2)
Chapter 71: Footprints Before His Feet (2)
Even when the challenge turned out to involve a field he did not specialise in, Jo Minjoon’s expression did not waver. It was a hurdle he would have to overcome someday anyway.
Of course, the old him would probably have been regretting it right about now. But he did not. And it was not because his baking level had recently risen to 5. After all, not every dessert had to involve baking.
Should I try that?
Jo Minjoon’s gaze sharpened. What had come to mind was the dessert he had eaten at Rose Island. Aside from the chocolate pastry, all the desserts had scored 8 points, which also meant that Jo Minjoon knew their recipes.
Of course, knowing a recipe and reproducing it were two different things. Still, he was confident that he could recreate at least ninety per cent of the flavour. The dish consisted of sudachi curd and green apple jelly, with roasted cashew nuts as a garnish.
After returning from the restaurant, Jo Minjoon had worked hard to reproduce every dish except those involving molecular gastronomy. This was the one he had come closest to replicating. Just yesterday, he had attempted it again and succeeded in making a 7-point version.
(Translator’s Note: Molecular gastronomy — A scientific study of the physical and chemical processes involved in cooking. The field is closely associated with physicist Nicholas Kurti (1908–1998) and physical chemist Hervé This (b. 1955); the term “molecular and physical gastronomy” emerged in the late 1980s.)
If there was one variable, it was time. Jo Minjoon looked anxiously towards Joseph, but it was Emily, not Joseph, who spoke.
“You have two choices. One hour or two hours. If you choose two hours for something you could make in only one, there’s no need to even discuss the score, right? Make a dessert that uses the time you’re given to its fullest. And…” Emily paused for a moment before continuing with a serious expression. “Two people will be eliminated in this mission. One from the one-hour group and one from the two-hour group. Neither of them will be given another opportunity. So choose your time carefully. We’ll give you ten minutes. If you want one hour, go to the counters on the right. If you want two hours, go to the left. That’s left and right from where I’m standing.”
Jo Minjoon had little choice but to select the two-hour option. If he wanted to make the jelly properly, he would need at least that much time.
The unexpected choice came from Marco. Given that baking was his speciality, Jo Minjoon had expected him to choose two hours, but Marco picked the one-hour option instead. Chloe, Hugo, and Peter also chose one hour.
That made five people in total. On the other side, six people chose two hours: Jo Minjoon, Joanne, Ivanna, and three others.
Jo Minjoon glanced at the other contestants. The one who caught his attention was a Black woman named Sasha. She looked to be about five years older than him. Slim and gentle in temperament, Sasha had never been someone Jo Minjoon paid much attention to before. Their relationship amounted to little more than her occasionally bringing him food and asking him to check its cooking score.
However, that had changed a few days ago.
[Sasha Kane]
Cooking Level: 6
Baking Level: 7
Tasting Level: 6
Decoration Level: 5
Until recently, the only contestants with a baking level of 7 had been Marco and Anderson. That had been true a few days ago, and probably a few weeks ago as well. It was not as though Jo Minjoon went around checking everyone else’s levels all the time. He had only noticed Sasha’s change a few days earlier.
The carrot pound cake she had brought him two days ago to ask for its score had been anything but ordinary.
Eight points.
Surprised, Jo Minjoon had checked her level and discovered that it had already risen.
To improve in the middle of the competition… Well, I’m the same.
He did not particularly feel like congratulating her. What competitor could sincerely celebrate another competitor becoming stronger?
Jo Minjoon looked at his own status window with regret. His levels did not seem likely to rise anytime soon. More precisely, his cooking level did not. Since coming to the United States, every skill except his cooking level had increased by one. Of course, since cooking was such an important skill, it made sense that the level would not rise easily.
Even so, human greed had no end.
Does my skill improve when my level rises? Or does my level only rise after my skill improves?
It was a question he had always wondered about, but there was no one anywhere who could answer it. Strangely enough, when his cooking level had risen to 6, it had not happened while he was cooking. It had happened while he was eating food prepared by Jane, Lucas’s wife. The system had said that his level had risen because his understanding of cooking had broadened.
And that was indeed what had happened. That was the first time he had eaten a genuine American home-cooked meal, and through it, he had gained a much clearer sense of what American cooking was like. It was fair to say that his horizons had broadened.
I thought eating at a three-star restaurant would be enough.
But what had risen then was not his cooking level, but his tasting level. It was unfortunate, but there was nothing he could do about it. Level 7. He was now at the same level as Kaya, Anderson, and Chloe. Expecting a level that high to increase easily would be asking too much.
At that moment, Alan spoke.
“It looks like everyone has chosen. Remember, this is a dessert mission. Make the kind of dessert that would make someone want to eat it even when they’re already so full they’d have to throw up just to make room for it. Those who chose the one-hour option will start cooking one hour from now. Until then, you can only watch. All right, let’s begin. Get your ingredients!”
Jo Minjoon immediately moved. He did not intend to gather every ingredient at once. It would be better to start preparing the green apple jelly as quickly as possible. He would have plenty of time to fetch the remaining ingredients while it simmered.
For now, he took sugar, an underripe apple, caramel, and pectin.
When he had first come to the United States, he had used apple peels for their natural pectin whenever he made jelly because he had neither gelatin nor pectin on hand. But with powdered pectin available, there was no need for that anymore.
There were two main ingredients he could use to make this kind of jelly: gelatin and pectin. Many people also used agar powder to make jelly, but its texture was closer to muk than jelly.
(Translator’s Note: Muk —A Korean category of savoury jellies made by extracting and setting starch from ingredients such as mung beans, buckwheat, or acorns. Common varieties include dotorimuk (acorn jelly) and cheongpomuk (mung-bean jelly). Muk has a firm but yielding texture and belongs to a longstanding Korean starch-processing tradition)
The difference between gelatin and pectin was simple. Gelatin was produced by processing animal collagen, while pectin was extracted from plant matter such as citrus peel and apples. Their characteristics differed just as much as their origins. Jelly made with gelatin set more firmly, but its flavour tended to be more muted. Pectin produced a softer set by comparison, while allowing the flavour to come through more strongly.
But Jo Minjoon did not need to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of gelatin and pectin. The dessert he had eaten at Rose Island had used pectin.
There were already clear footprints laid out before him—the footprints of an excellent dessert. All he had to do was follow them.
He cut the apple into wedges and added them to boiling water along with the sugar and caramel. Then he returned to the pantry for the ingredients he had not brought the first time: sudachi, Asian pear, nasturtium, cashew nuts, celery, eggs, and butter.
When he returned, the first thing he did was check the pot.
At that moment, the judges approached him.
“What are you planning to make?”
“I’m going to recreate what I ate at Rose Island. First, I’ll spread sudachi curd over the base of the plate, then place round pieces of jelly on top. I’ll add the other ingredients as well.”
“I see. I understand that you were impressed by quite a few things there. But harmony is one thing, and the proportions of the ingredients in each component are just as important. That…” Alan had begun speaking sceptically, but abruptly stopped. His eyes trembled slightly before he asked, as though a possibility had suddenly occurred to him. “…Let me ask you something first. Minjoon, can you tell not only what ingredients are in a dish, but their proportions as well?”
“There’s more information in a dish than you might think.” Jo Minjoon answered calmly.
At his words, even Joseph’s mouth fell open in astonishment. Being able to identify the ingredients was already extraordinary, but he could even estimate their proportions? It was an absurd ability. If they knew that Jo Minjoon could actually read the recipe itself, they might become angry rather than merely astonished.
“…The head chefs of every restaurant you visit will have to be careful around you.”
“Why?”
“Because you could become the worst industrial spy in the business.”
Jo Minjoon merely laughed without replying.
Alan struggled to tear his gaze away before moving on. They still had to visit the other contestants.
Just before leaving, Emily spoke cautiously. “It seems I’ve found one more reason to get closer to you.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a chef getting along with a food critic.”
“Drawing the line again. I’m not going to force that offer from before on you, so you don’t have to be so wary.” Emily smiled brightly after saying that and walked away.
Whether the judges were there or not, what Jo Minjoon had to do remained the same. He stirred the apples to keep them from burning and began preparing the sudachi curd.
The first step was cleaning the sudachi thoroughly. He rubbed them with baking soda and a little water until they foamed, then scrubbed them with coarse salt and repeated the process. Finally, he dipped them in boiling water for ten seconds, completing the preparation.
The reason he was using fresh sudachi rather than bottled sudachi juice was that he needed the zest.
After shaving off only the thin green outer layer of the peel, Jo Minjoon began beating the eggs in a bowl. He used one egg for each sudachi. He added a pinch of salt to the beaten eggs, followed by an amount of sugar equal to the beaten egg mixture, and then added the sudachi juice. The juice did more than add flavour; the properties of the sudachi would also help give the egg mixture a creamy consistency.
After that, he checked the apples again.
They had become quite soft. When he pressed them with the rice paddle, they collapsed easily.
Jo Minjoon set another pot of water to boil for the sudachi curd, then finished mashing the apples. He lined another bowl with a cotton cloth and poured the apple mixture into it. The aroma of apples and sugar was so intense it almost stung his nose, and the hot steam rising from it was far from pleasant.
After carefully tying the ends of the cloth together, all he had to do was wait for the apple juice to drain slowly. If he squeezed it forcefully, the solids trapped in the cloth would seep through as well. He needed to let the juice drip naturally if he wanted a clean texture.
Once the juice had drained, he would add pectin powder, reduce it, and then chill it until set.
While the apple juice reduced, it was time to return to the sudachi curd. Jo Minjoon placed a stainless-steel bowl over the pot of boiling water and gently heated the beaten egg and sudachi mixture. If the temperature became too high, the eggs would simply cook and scramble. Using a bain-marie was the easiest and safest method.
He spent ten minutes stirring continuously with the rice paddle to keep the curd from sticking to the bottom.
He then lightly touched the jelly. Its edges trembled.
That meant it was ready.
Jo Minjoon set down the rice paddle and placed the jelly in the freezer.
Returning to the counter, he pressed the curd with the rice paddle. It held the shape of the indentation, which meant it was finished.
Jo Minjoon removed the bowl from above the pot, then added the sudachi zest and butter and slowly stirred them through. The mixture was still hot, so the butter melted easily. The finely shredded zest blended naturally into the curd, and because its colour matched the mixture, the result was a smooth, glossy sudachi curd.
Jo Minjoon tasted the green curd, his heart beating faster.
“…Good.”
It was good enough to make the word escape him involuntarily.
Sweet and sour.
Those three words were enough to describe it. The sharpness of the sudachi restrained the sweetness of the sugar. Once paired with the green apple jelly, the aroma of the caramel melted into it would mingle with the fragrance of the apple, creating a perfect combination.
In truth, he had already been able to predict the result before even tasting it.
[Sudachi Curd]
Freshness: 94%
Origins: (Too many ingredients to show)
Quality: High
Cooking Score: 7/10