Chapter 86: The Pig and the Fire (2)
Chapter 86: The Pig and the Fire (2)
Actually, coming up with an eight-point recipe was no longer particularly surprising. There were only two restrictions on the dish: it had to use pork, and it had to use fire. As far as Minjoon could tell, there was hardly any pork dish that did not involve heat in some form, so in practice, all he needed to do was think of recipes centred around pork.
During his time in the Grand Chef house, he had tasted far more than ten or twenty pork dishes. The contestants had come from all over the country, and even if they were amateurs, there was always something he could learn from them. All of that knowledge had accumulated inside his head, so at this point, it would have been stranger if he could not devise an eight-point recipe.
But merely coming up with an eight-point recipe was not enough. A recipe could sound like a perfect ten when someone explained it aloud, because words alone could make almost anything sound impressive. Actually reproducing one hundred per cent of the flavour envisioned by that recipe was an entirely different matter. He had to prepare three different dishes in two hours. If he wanted to avoid mistakes, he needed to plan every stage of the cooking process meticulously.
He even had to arrange the timing so that all three dishes would be completed at roughly the same moment. Fortunately, that condition was not especially difficult. The sauce for the pork ribs could be prepared in advance before the meat was cooked in it, while the meatballs did not require much cooking time. Inevitably, the dish that would take the longest was the Dongpo pork.
“...Have you already decided?” Kaya had been frowning with her fingers interlaced when she glanced towards him and asked.
Minjoon answered with a relaxed expression. “Well, it’s not that hard to come up with something, is it?”
“...Disgusting.” Kaya glared at him before clasping her hands together again.
Minjoon looked at her. “You still haven’t decided on a recipe?”
“No. I’ve thought of plenty. I just don’t know which ones to use.”
“You two over there, don’t talk.” Emily shot them a sharp look.
Kaya pouted and went back to thinking. It was not that she was particularly slow. Looking around, Minjoon could see that most of the other contestants had yet to finish planning their recipes either.
Was I always this fast...?
He did not think he had been, at least not in the beginning. Perhaps the real difference was confidence. The other contestants had no way of knowing whether a recipe they devised would truly work until they cooked it, because they did not have a system that assigned scores to recipes. Minjoon did. That allowed him to remain so calm that even the judges began watching him with concerned expressions.
“Minjoon. Have you already finished planning?”
“Yes.”
“Think about it a little longer. A recipe that seems perfect in your head can produce a completely different result once you actually cook it. And sometimes a recipe that sounds terrible can taste heavenly.”
“Yes. I’m still thinking.” Minjoon answered with a calm smile.
Alan opened his mouth as though he wanted to say something more, but eventually closed it again. Thinking back, there had hardly been any occasions when Minjoon’s recipes had been outright disastrous. There was no particular reason to think today would suddenly be different.
“...I’ll trust you.” In the end, that was all Alan said.
Minjoon slowly loosened his fingers. A high cooking score generally meant a higher degree of difficulty as well. If he lost focus for even a minute, there was a good chance he would miss the exact timing needed to bring out the intended flavour.
That was obvious for the Dongpo pork and the fried meatballs, but the pork ribs posed a problem as well. He intended to grill them directly over a high flame. The difficulty was lower than the grilled eel Kaya had made before, but Minjoon was nowhere near as skilled with direct-fire cooking as she was. That meant this mission would require more concentration from him than almost any previous one.
Time passed. Joseph watched the clock, then announced the start of the mission in a clear voice.
“Start!”
The contestants rushed towards the pantry. The first thing Minjoon selected was the pork: samgyeopsal for the Dongpo pork, pork shoulder for the meatballs, and ribs for the pork galbi. Besides those, he needed dry red wine, onions, potatoes, herbs, and numerous other ingredients. Since he was making three dishes, the ingredient list was naturally long, but Minjoon did not spend much time choosing them.
Freshness, seventy-three per cent... eighty-one... ninety-one... Ah, there it is. Ninety-seven per cent. The quality is only average, though.
Even choosing potatoes was different for him. The others had to touch them, examine their colour, and judge their shape, whereas Minjoon only needed to glance at the system window to know the answer. That alone created an enormous difference. His selection speed was so fast that neither Anderson, who had received specialised culinary training from childhood, nor Kaya, who had grown up in a market surrounded by ingredients every day, could match him.
By the time the others had only half-filled their baskets, Minjoon was already back at his workstation preparing to cook.
The judges approached and looked over his ingredients, unable to conceal their surprise. Joseph picked up one of the potatoes, then glanced at the onions.
“Sometimes I thought you simply had good instincts, but you really do know how to choose ingredients. Everything you picked is in excellent condition. Fresh, properly grown, and well selected. Do you have some sort of trick?”
“I wouldn’t call it a trick. I just have good eyes.”
“...Those are enviable eyes. I doubt even I could choose ingredients that quickly.”
Coming from Joseph, that was a stronger compliment than almost anything else.
Minjoon smiled and placed three pots over the heat. Into the first went onions, spring onions, ginger, garlic, salt, cinnamon, and refined rice wine for boiling the samgyeopsal. The second contained sweet pumpkin, onions, carrots, and spring onions for the vegetable gravy that would accompany the meatballs. The final pot held canola oil for frying the samgyeopsal. One characteristic of Hong Kong-style Dongpo pork was that the pork belly was fried before being braised.
The first ingredient Minjoon dealt with was the pork ribs. Since the meat clung tightly to the bone, separating and trimming it cleanly without damaging the flesh required skill. He worked the meat into an even thickness of about five millimetres. It might not have looked especially difficult from the outside, but maintaining the same thickness across the entire piece was delicate work.
That knife work would determine the quality of the pork ribs. If the thickness was uneven, one section would remain undercooked while another became overcooked. Because of that, Minjoon’s eyes sharpened, his attention to detail even greater than usual.
He sliced the rib meat calmly but quickly. He did not force the knife through with brute strength. Instead, the blade moved almost as though he were gently stroking the meat, carefully following its grain. Each motion separated another portion cleanly. Anyone who understood knife work would immediately recognise how much concentration such seemingly effortless movements required.
He’s improved tremendously. Joseph thought this as he watched Minjoon’s knife.
Only two months had passed since the elimination rounds, yet during that time Minjoon had steadily filled in many of the weaknesses he once had. No, calling the progress steady almost understated it. His growth had been remarkably fast.
He certainly has talent.
Minjoon himself could not see it because the system obscured his own progress from his perspective, but to anyone watching from the outside, he was plainly a talented chef. Knife work was not simply a matter of moving a blade. A cook had to understand the ingredient and feel how it responded. It was a vague way of describing it, but there was no better expression.
Joseph could see that Minjoon’s understanding of cooking had deepened enormously compared with two months earlier. It showed in his recipes, his knife work, and the order in which he handled each process. Of course, his environment played a large role. He was surrounded by talented cooks who constantly stimulated him, and at least once a week he had to compete directly against them in difficult missions. It would almost have been strange if he had not improved under those conditions.
Even taking that into account, however, Minjoon’s rate of growth was exceptionally fast.
It was difficult to call him a genius. That word suited someone like Kaya better, and in any case, Joseph disliked casually calling chefs geniuses. To him, doing so seemed almost like a betrayal of the years of effort a person poured into cooking. But talent undoubtedly existed in every field, and Jo Minjoon possessed more of it than most chefs Joseph had encountered.
That was true even without considering his absolute sense of taste.
Joseph had already heard from Alan that Emily had suggested Minjoon might pursue a career as a food critic rather than a chef. Joseph thought it was an appalling suggestion. Minjoon was the sort of chef who might one day leave his name in culinary history. If he spent his life merely evaluating other people’s dishes instead, Joseph could imagine few greater wastes.
Even under Joseph’s intense gaze, Minjoon remained completely unaware of what the older chef was thinking. He placed the pork ribs into a marinade made from ginger, chopped garlic, barbecue sauce, soy sauce, red wine, sugar, and lemon juice.
Then it was time to fry the samgyeopsal. The pork belly needed to be fried only until the outside was seared and the juices sealed in. After that, it would be boiled, wrapped together with the Dongpo pork sauce, and steamed. That would complete the Hong Kong-style Dongpo pork.
Minjoon lowered the pork belly into the oil as it began to boil, then immediately turned his attention to the pork shoulder for the meatballs.
Pork shoulder had coarse fibres and tough muscles, so it was not naturally a tender cut. Usually it was simmered for a long time or sliced thinly for other preparations. For meatballs, a leaner cut was generally preferable, which meant the shoulder needed careful handling.
For someone inexperienced with meat, preparing it properly could easily take several minutes. It was not simply a matter of chopping until everything became mince. Meat fibres did not separate cleanly just because a knife struck them repeatedly. Unless the cook understood the necessary force, angle, and direction of the grain, the process could become unnecessarily slow and rough.
Minjoon’s hands, however, moved quickly. By the time the samgyeopsal had reached the degree of frying he wanted, the minced pork shoulder had already been mixed with dill. The amount of pork was not large, but finishing the meat mixture in the brief time it took to sear the pork belly was still impressive.
Minjoon transferred the samgyeopsal into a pot of boiling water.
At that point, the judges approached his workstation again. “Minjoon, more than half your time is already gone. Do you think you’ll be able to finish everything?”
“Yes. It’s going exactly as I calculated.”
“I saw you fry the pork belly before boiling it. Will you still be able to preserve the proper texture of the Dongpo pork that way?”
“I’m making it Hong Kong-style. I’m not aiming for a firm exterior and soft interior. I want the outside to become soft as well.”
“...Hong Kong-style Dongpo pork. Good. Keep going.”
Even while answering, Minjoon barely looked at the judges. He was concentrating too intensely to spare them more than a fraction of his attention, and each passing moment tightened the tension inside him.
Yet it was enjoyable.
That suffocating intensity, the feeling that every second mattered, made him feel as though he was genuinely mastering cooking rather than merely following instructions.
The corner of Minjoon’s mouth lifted.
In oil scented with fried garlic, chilli, star anise, and ginger, he added spring onions along with oyster sauce, kaoliang liquor, aged soy sauce, and sugar. The proportions were exact. He sliced the boiled pork belly thinly and placed strips of spring onion between the pieces. Then he poured the sauce over everything, wrapped it securely, and placed it in the steamer.
(Translator’s Note: Kaoliang liquor— A Chinese distilled spirit made principally from sorghum. Sorghum-based distilled spirits have a long history in northern China, while kaoliang became particularly associated with northern Chinese and Taiwanese drinking culture. It is normally high in alcohol and has a pronounced grain aroma.)
A little over forty minutes remained.
Minjoon placed a bell pepper directly over the flame. Then he added breadcrumbs and cream to the minced pork mixture, seasoned it with salt and pepper, and began shaping it into balls. Strangely, the process felt much easier than it had before. Perhaps it was because he had handled so much dough while practising baking. Compared with the catfish meatballs he had made previously, shaping these felt almost effortless.
...Was it always this easy?
The thought surprised him, but there was no time to dwell on it.
Minjoon spread oil across a frying pan and carefully browned the meatballs. Once their surfaces had developed a deep brown crust, he poured in the vegetable gravy that had been simmering beside him and covered the pan with a lid. Only then did he release the breath he had been unconsciously holding.
The remaining steps were straightforward. He peeled away the blackened skin of the bell pepper, sliced the flesh into long strips, and arranged them on a plate. Once the vegetable gravy had reduced slightly, he added red wine, allowing the flames to rise briefly in a light flambé. Then he placed the finished meatballs one by one over the roasted pepper.
The sauce was simple. After turning off the heat beneath the meatball pan, he added sugar, wine, balsamic vinegar, and additional vinegar, letting the remaining heat reduce the mixture into a glaze. He spooned it over the meatballs.
That completed the dish.
And the score...
Eight points.
A faint smile appeared on Minjoon’s face. The process had been difficult, but seeing the result turn out exactly as he expected immediately lifted his mood. More than that, he was happy that he could now produce an eight-point dish without agonising over every decision.
Minjoon allowed himself a brief rest. If he wanted the pork galbi at its best, he needed to finish it immediately before judging. When approximately ten minutes remained, he removed the Dongpo pork from the steamer and plated it.
Its score was exactly what he had expected as well.
A smile almost appeared on his lips, but it quickly vanished as his expression tightened again.
Only the pork galbi remained.
Unexpectedly, it was both the simplest and the most difficult dish of the three. The other dishes were complicated because of the number of steps involved, but the ribs depended on precise control. A moment of carelessness could ruin them. Whether he could produce an eight-point version of this dish would show whether his improvement was genuine or merely the result of carefully following recipes.
Minjoon placed the pork galbi over the grill.
Direct flame.
It was one of the most difficult ways to cook with fire. With charcoal or straw over gentle heat, the process would have been much easier. But cooking marinated pork over a strong direct flame without burning the sauce while still cooking the meat properly was another matter entirely. Keeping the juices inside at the same time only increased the difficulty.
Of course, his situation was still somewhat easier than when Kaya had grilled eel. Pork was less delicate than fish.
Even so...
The burner flames rose blue, occasionally flashing red. Minjoon bit his lip. His palms were damp with sweat from the tension. If this dish failed, the success of the other two would lose much of its meaning.
But this was a challenge he had to overcome.
The fire seemed alive. Minjoon was not normally someone who described cooking in such terms, but there was no other way to put it. The flames chased the dripping juices and sauce, flaring higher whenever they touched. Each time that happened, Minjoon could not afford even to blink. He had to shift the grill immediately, controlling the distance and angle before the sauce could burn.
The rich smell of grilling meat rose together with thick smoke. He wanted to cough, but suppressed it.
Two things kept him going: the aroma of the sauce as it heated together with the meat, and the sight of the pork cooking evenly without a single visible scorch mark.
Minjoon endured the smoke, the heat, and the fear of failure with almost painful concentration. And at the end of it, when he finally lifted the grill away from the flames, the result was simple.
[You have perfectly grilled the pork galbi according to the recipe without making any mistakes.]
[Through the combination of concentration, skill, experience, intuition, and other factors, your Cooking Level has changed!]
[Your Cooking Level has increased!]