Elf? More Like a Fussy Elf! (2)
There are many kinds of doenjang-jjigae.
Some people want it light, closer to a clear soybean-paste soup, just for the pleasure of the broth. Others stir gochujang in with the doenjang, add meat, and go for something heavy and fiery. And then there is the style boiled down like a jjageuli, the broth reduced until it is practically gang-doenjang.
Depending on taste, and on what goes into the pot, the same doenjang-jjigae can taste a hundred different ways.
Of all those, the one I meant to make today was the most ordinary.
Not the restaurant kind. A doenjang-jjigae with the full vibe of home cooking.
You know the one. A base of those little anchovy-stock coins, no meat, but tofu and side vegetables piled in with a generous hand—the touch of a mother's cooking.
Of course, I was not these fussy elves' mother. I was not even a woman...
Come to think of it, I am playing mom.
Living with Iseria had taught me that the young lady's life skills were a wreck. She could not do laundry properly, and if you trusted her with the dishes, they came back exactly as slick with grease as when she had started. She was no great cook, either. What she was good at was sleeping. She got up late every single day.
Anyway, my current post was basically that of a housewife, so I figured I was more than qualified to make a home-style doenjang-jjigae.
Iseria watched with keen interest as I sliced onion, potato, and Korean zucchini into even pieces.
That's it. Just grow up healthy.
While I was cutting the vegetables, the stock I had already set on the heat began to bubble. I killed the flame under the pot of anchovies—guts and heads removed, then toasted—and kelp. It had already boiled for about ten minutes, and neither kelp nor anchovy was the sort of thing you wanted to boil hard until it fell apart. Kelp, especially: draw the stock in a rolling boil and it foams, the broth clouds, and bitterness climbs up. Another ten minutes of steeping like this, and then I could start.
In the meantime I parboiled the potatoes first. There was nothing else to do while I waited, and zucchini and onion cook quickly, while a potato takes forever on its own. Get them halfway done ahead of time, and you can shorten the stew by a good stretch.
From the moment I started cooking, Seiran and Veila had not stopped watching me with suspicious eyes. More precisely, eyes that wanted to be suspicious. I could not be sure, but after they had tried the hardtack earlier, it had tasted better than they expected. Wasn't that it? They disliked a human like me getting along with Iseria, but the food was good, so they were wavering.
Whether they hung on my every move like puppies or not, I had work to do.
Once the stock had steeped enough, I lifted out the solids.
People who do not cook often will sometimes ask how you can tell if a stock has come out well. You might think you would know if you tasted it. Surprisingly, you do not. A stock holds only a small share of the flavor, the aroma, and the savoriness the ingredients themselves possess. Beginners taste it and find it bland, and they have not practiced reading scent, so they are left wondering whether the stock is even any good.
So what is a sure way to tell whether it has steeped properly?
First, ladle out a little, season it, and drink. People sensitive to taste and aroma can take one bite and guess the order of cooking, the method, even the ingredients. Most people cannot feel that far. Season the stock and drink it, though, and the brain drags up a sleeping memory of flavor. Oh—this tastes like that dish I had back then. Once the memory surfaces, you keep steeping until it tastes similar, or stop if it is already fine.
That method is a bit of a hassle.
So the other way is simply to eat the ingredient you steeped. Take onion. Everyone knows the taste of a cooked onion: a little sharp, a little sweet. Eat the onion from the stock and see whether that taste is still there. If it tastes like cooked onion, the flavor has not all gone into the broth yet. If it feels like you are only chewing fiber, the stock has steeped well. That is how you judge it.
I pulled a single anchovy from the hot stock and ate it. It crumbled in my mouth with no taste and no aroma at all. The stock had steeped just enough.
I loosened the doenjang straight into the pot, then dumped in the onion, potato, and zucchini all at once. Ordinarily you would add the potato first, since it takes the longest, then the zucchini, and the onion last. I had already parboiled the potatoes, so it hardly mattered.
The moment the ingredients truly began to come together, the first floor of the restaurant filled with the deep savor of doenjang-jjigae. Seiran and Veila sniffed at the funky aroma of fermented paste—a smell they had never met in their lives—with strange looks on their faces. Iseria was no exception. She had only ever tasted gochujang. Today was her first meeting with doenjang.
"What is this smell? It seems kind of rank, and yet it's strangely addictive..."
"It isn't a toasty aroma! But it's a scent in a similar vein... like hay stacked up through the winter!"
"So is that good, or bad."
Maybe it was because I had been praised to the skies over hardtack a few days ago. The elves' half-pleased, half-displeased reaction felt a little dull. Then again, I had expected this dish to split opinions, so it was actually a relief that nobody hated it...
"Ugh, Jinwoo! This smells weird!"
"You, of all people."
Seiran or Veila, I could have understood. But you, Iseria, who was comparatively used to Korean food? She had always eaten whatever I made as if she could trust it simply because I had cooked it, and now a betrayal I could hardly put into words came rushing in.
No. My doenjang-jjigae was not finished yet.
Around the time the doenjang had soaked into the ingredients, I added finely sliced green onion, hot chili, and the tofu.
Tofu. This was the true kick of doenjang-jjigae.
Gochujang has a spicy, salty charm. Soy sauce wraps the tongue in salty savoriness. On impact alone, doenjang could never match the intensity of those two. But doenjang's true worth was not intensity. Gentle without, firm within. The addictive funk of beans fermented over a long time; a deep, clean savor you keep going back for; and, with it, the particular heartiness that belongs to beans alone. An ingredient with real substance.
For a doenjang like that, tofu was the perfect match. A partner of the soul. Both were made from beans, and the grain of their flavors was similar, so cooked together they threw off an enormous synergy.
I let it boil about three minutes more so the tofu could take the seasoning, and then I was done.
The eternal GOAT of cozy home cooking: doenjang-jjigae, complete.
Three elves and one human sat companionably at a table for four. In the center, a generous pot of doenjang-jjigae still bubbled, as if proud of its heat. It looked like a mud pot erupting in a volcanic field.
Faced with a dish on an entirely different track from anything they had eaten all their lives, Seiran, Veila, and Iseria hardened their faces. Iseria, who had been eating Korean food while living with Kang Jinwoo, was at least somewhat all right. Seiran and Veila were not.
They had come down into human lands to fetch their young lady, and now they were supposed to eat the humans' food as well? Was this even human food to begin with? They were not exactly well versed in human civilization, but they at least knew the people of the Empire did not eat anything that looked like a swamp.
Even so, the reason they were still sitting there was the food the human had given them earlier. The hardtack. It was the same sort of ration as the elves' Elskit, but the taste had been far superior. It had seemed to contain something animal, true, yet it had a crispness and a flavor that overcame that unease. So they held a shred of expectation in front of this food—this doenjang-jjigae. Funky smell, ugly look, but maybe the taste, at least, was the real thing.
"All right, let's eat. Mix it with the rice if you want, or have them separate. Whatever's comfortable."
The human chef, Kang Jinwoo, scooped a generous ladle into the bowl in front of him. Seiran and Veila followed and served stew into their own bowls. They liked the rice he had set out in place of bread: snow-white, thick with a sweet grain fragrance. They had tried the plain rice out of curiosity, and it had been fine on its own. Did they really have to dirty this pure white rice?
Seiran hesitated over his spoon, his face saying he was not sure this was right.
Whether he was or not, Kang Jinwoo briskly mixed the doenjang-jjigae into the rice and tucked it neatly into his mouth.
"Hoo, hot. That's good!"
The tofu and potatoes held their heat a long time. He kept working his mouth without a pause, but his expression was happy.
Iseria, too, took a big spoonful of rice mixed with the stew. She had called the smell strange at first, but once the tofu went in and the stew was finished, her interest had returned. Her face said, clear as anything, H-hmph...! I'll eat one bite, in light of your effort.
"Mm... nngh?"
It did not seem to taste bad. Iseria tilted her head and worked her dainty jaw. One bite, then another. Her expression was still odd, but the spoon did not stop.
Watching her keep shoveling it in, Seiran and Veila steeled themselves, mixed rice into the doenjang-jjigae, squeezed their eyes shut, and put the spoons in their mouths.
The first thing they felt was warmth. Not physical warmth. Something more fundamental. The vitality in the tofu. The particular heartiness of fermented food. The heaven-sent nourishment in all those vegetables. All of that life gathered behind the doenjang and offered an enormous coziness. Stiff shoulders and tight faces loosened with a single bite.
This comfort even carried a sense of déjà vu. Where had they felt it before? Eyes still shut, Seiran and Veila surrendered themselves to memory. What rose was the mother of every elf. The immense blessing watching over them from the heart of Nuardel—the World Tree...
No. That can't be!
The moment the thought struck, Seiran shook his head. Eat this mud-pit of a dish, and dare to think of the World Tree, the most gracious of sacred trees? And yet, looking again, the World Tree's bark had been something like this color...
A trick. This has to be that human bastard's trick.
The food did not taste all that bad, he would grant. But to keep stirring thoughts this impious—better for the mind to finish it off quickly. Seiran lifted his spoon again. This time he mashed the fluffy potato and the tofu and mixed them in properly, rice and stew worked together as neatly as Iseria mixed bibimbap. He put the spoon in his mouth with a single thought: eat it, and be done.
Rice starch, crumbly potato, and soft tofu clung together in the broth. Like sand loosening under a wave, the clumps came apart on tongue and teeth and delivered every flavor they held, nothing added and nothing held back. This time the savoriness of the anchovy-and-kelp stock, the sweetness of the onion, and the deep savor of the doenjang struck his tongue at once. The mashed tofu was so soft that even if he did not want to swallow, the food slid straight down his throat.
Damn it. It isn't supposed to taste good. So why? For something that looks like mud boiling up out of hell. For something whose funky smell is faint, and yet addictive—a smell you can't stop breathing in. For something that tastes best of all when you ladle a fat, brothy spoonful over white rice, mash the tofu and potato, and mix the whole thing together.
Inside Seiran's skull, his pride as an elf and his joy as a living creature waged a sparking war of nerves.
That was when it happened.
"Mmm! Jinwoo, this is good. I didn't like the smell at first, but the more I eat, the more I do. My body and my mind feel at ease."
"It really is, Lady Iseria. This is delicious!"
Iseria pouring out praise, and Veila already captured by the doenjang-jjigae, chiming right along. Watching them, a sticky little scheme took shape in Seiran's heart. A way to keep both his pride as an elf and his joy as a living creature.
Lady Iseria says it's delicious, so I have no choice. I'm her escort...
I have no choice.
As Iseria's escort, he could not run down something she had accepted. It was food the young lady liked, so he, her guard, could eat it with her. Lady Iseria was the one who had said to eat, and therefore he had not yielded to a human's cooking.
A terrible rationalization, born at the end of a clash between conviction and instinct. The completion of Seiran's world of doenjang-jjigae—a world in which nobody got hurt.