Chicken Game (3)
After visiting Continue Capital, Min Gijin immediately called Yang Jae-woo, the man in charge of S-Mart.
"What happened?"
Min Gijin relayed Han Miru's message.
"You want S-Mart to put out half-price chicken?"
"That's right."
Large supermarkets already had prepared-food sections, where they sold everything from fried foods and pizza to jokbal, sushi, sandwiches, and salads.
Chicken was part of that lineup, too.
"If we cut the price as far as possible, how low can we go?"
Yang Jae-woo did a quick calculation in his head, then answered, "Chicken isn't all that expensive to begin with. If we keep the margin to a minimum, we could get it down to 7,000 won."
When it came to food pricing, rent and labor mattered almost as much as ingredients.
But since this was being sold in a supermarket, there was no rent to pay, and since the employees in charge of cooking were already on hand, there wasn't any extra labor cost to speak of.
On top of that, they bought raw chickens and other ingredients directly from farms and had long-term bulk contracts in place, so their costs were as low as any franchise's.
Before coming to S-Mart, Yang Jae-woo had been the head of a franchise chain himself. That meant he knew the Korean chicken market inside and out.
"Consumer backlash over the recent chicken price hikes has been huge. If we launch half-price chicken now, it should create a massive promotional effect and draw in a lot of customers. But it won't do much to hurt the top franchise chains driving those price increases."
"That's why he said we shouldn't just roll out the fried chicken or seasoned chicken we're already selling. We need to put out chicken that can beat the top three franchise chains."
The chicken market was already split, more or less, between low-end and high-end products.
Expensive chicken sold well because the taste and quality justified the price. But what if the half-price chicken sold at a supermarket tasted better than a franchise chicken that cost 20,000 won?
Obviously, public opinion would explode, and the top chicken franchise chains would take a serious hit.
The problem was...
"Do we even have such a recipe?"
As with everything else, talking was easy. Execution was the hard part.
And then the answer that came back was a little ridiculous.
"The team leader at Continue Capital says he'll make it himself."
After a moment, Yang Jae-woo blinked at him as though he'd misheard. "…Excuse me?"
I invited Senior Dongho, Min Ah-reum, and Sung Yoon-ah over for a housewarming.
I had invited David too, but he couldn't come because of Maggie. Kang Seon-woo was still at the company, tied up with work.
One by one, I welcomed my guests, and then an unexpected intruder showed up—someone I hadn't invited at all.
"Wow! This place is nice."
I stared at the uninvited guest, taken aback.
"How did you get here...?"
Then the intruder asked back without a shred of shame, "Why? You said it was a housewarming today."
"How did you know?"
Sena lifted her chin proudly. "Ahreum told me."
…
She had already gone and recruited everyone around me.
That kid was truly terrifying.
"You're here, Sena?"
"Nice to see you!"
Min Ah-reum and Sung Yoon-ah welcomed Sena warmly.
Sojin, who had come with Sena, bowed her head toward me.
"Hello, Mr. Miru. Thank you for inviting me today."
"Oh, hey."
In truth, I hadn't invited her at all—Han Sena had dragged her along on her own—but there was no way I could let Sojin see that.
"This is a housewarming gift."
"What is it?"
"A diffuser. It's supposed to be a scent that clears your head."
"Thanks."
That was a thoughtful gift.
She was already a pretty girl, but today she looked even prettier.
If I could have, I might have traded Han Sena for her as my little sister.
I looked at Han Sena and asked, "What, nothing for me?"
"Uh, isn't having a cute little sister come over a gift in itself?"
…
No, it wasn't.
If she'd come by herself, I'd have thrown her out, but I held back because of Sojin.
Everyone wandered around the house, showering it with praise and saying it was beautifully done.
"Wow, you can see the Han River at a glance."
"The interior is gorgeous."
"You really did a fantastic job decorating this place."
All of it was Min Ah-reum's handiwork.
Sena peered into the guest room and said, "I can just sleep here next time I come over. Should I bring some clothes and leave them here?"
"Don't you dare."
Sena pretended not to hear me and rubbed her stomach. "Is there anything to eat? I didn't have lunch."
"I'm cooking now."
At that, Sena looked at me like I'd said something absurd.
"Huh? You're cooking?"
"Of course."
Sung Yoon-ah asked, "Oh! You're good at cooking, Mr. Miru?"
Sena answered for me. "Hah, good at cooking? Not at all. He's terrible. Back when he tried to make pasta, he burned the whole pot and got yelled at by Mom. He couldn't even boil ramen properly, so he'd always make me do it."
No, I just had you do it because I couldn't be bothered.
"So what's on the menu?"
"Chicken."
To be fair, I still wasn't very good at other dishes.
But chicken was different.
I've probably watched more than 100,000 chickens dive, battered and breaded, into boiling oil with my own eyes and my own hands.
It might sound exaggerated, but it was the truth.
The chicken shop Seon-woo and I had run back then was one of the better-performing franchise locations in the whole chain.
It hadn't been some half-baked joke of a business, thrown together because we had nothing better to do and figured we might as well open a chicken shop.
Seon-woo had invested every last bit of his savings, along with the severance pay he'd received when he left the company.
Because of that, we had done a thorough market analysis, picked a prime location, and pushed localized marketing hard.
We sold an average of 150 chickens a day, and during big events like the World Cup or the Olympics, we sold more than 300 in a single day.
I thought I was going to pass out from frying chicken.
Hot oil had splashed onto my wrists and forearms and burned me, too.
Those scars disappeared after I regressed, but the experience of frying chicken day after day had stayed with me.
I stood in front of the spacious kitchen and said confidently, "From here on out, I'll show you my cooking skills, so watch closely."
Crash!
Sena looked at the tools I'd knocked over and clicked her tongue. "I knew this would happen."
…
If she'd known, she could've helped me hold them.
"What kind of cooking are you even doing?"
I made an excuse. "…It's been a while, that's all."
To make my excuse a little more convincing, I added that the layout of a restaurant kitchen was completely different from a home kitchen, and that back then we'd used special cooking equipment made by headquarters.
Sung Yoon-ah hesitated, then asked, "Should I help a little?"
Sojin chimed in too. "I-I'll help too, Miru."
The two of them volunteered to help at once.
It would definitely be easier with helpers than doing everything alone.
But there was no way I could make guests work during a housewarming.
At least the sister who was standing next to me and giving advice while doing absolutely nothing could be put to use.
"I'm appointing you as my temporary assistant, so help your brother from the side."
"What? Why me?"
"Don't you need pocket money?"
Sena snapped into a salute immediately. "Yes, Chef! What should I do first?"
Good attitude.
"Take the chicken out of the fridge."
I had bought the chicken the day before, cut it into bite-sized pieces, and marinated it in advance.
"What is this? Why is it soaking in milk?"
"That helps get rid of the gamey smell."
I took the chicken out of the milk, rinsed it, then sprinkled it with salt and pepper to season it.
I had been away from this for a while, so I was worried, but my body seemed to remember everything and moved on its own.
Next, I coated the chicken in batter and dropped it into the fryer.
Temperature: 180 degrees. Time: 5 minutes and 30 seconds.
At this stage, I had to stir it well so the pieces wouldn't clump together or stick.
Beep-beep-beep!
When the timer I'd set in advance went off, I lifted the basket out and shook off the oil.
The color was a perfect golden brown, glossy and beautiful.
"All right, now let's make the sauce."
The foundation of chicken was fried chicken.
Even with the same chicken, the taste changed depending on who fried it and how.
But the frying techniques used by today's chicken franchises had become so standardized that just about every fried chicken out there tasted good.
That meant fried chicken alone wasn't enough to create a real difference in flavor.
What created the difference was the sauce.
That sauce was one of the defining features of K-chicken. That was why the franchises invested so heavily in research and development for their sauces.
The companies leading that field were Hanjeong Chicken and BQQ.
Hanjeong Chicken had a research center called Chicken Lab, and BQQ had one called the Chicken Academy. That's where they developed their new menu items.
Franchises usually launched new menu items once or twice a year.
Most flared up and died out quickly, but a few caught on and became regular staples.
Hanjeong Chicken might have been number one, but in terms of total sales and market share, the gap between first and second wasn't all that huge.
And yet there had been one new item that sent Hanjeong Chicken soaring to undisputed first place: Red King Chicken.
After its release, Red King Chicken immediately became Hanjeong Chicken's signature menu item. There were even people who would pass by several other chicken places nearby and go straight to Hanjeong Chicken instead.
Since franchises had to keep the same taste at every branch, the sauce wasn't mixed at each store; headquarters blended it and sent it out in bulk.
But popular menu items always spawned imitation recipes. If consumers analyzed the flavor and posted recipes online and on ATube, it became possible to reproduce something fairly close.
Seon-woo and I had researched recipes on our own and even tried making them ourselves, just in case our franchise contract ever got terminated. Those memories were still intact.
I started by pouring soy sauce into a pot, then added gochujang, ketchup, garlic, ginger, pepper, and salt one after another.
When I added strawberry jam after the sriracha sauce, Sena jumped in surprise.
"Hey! Why are you putting in strawberry jam?"
"Because I need it. If you use sugar or oligosaccharide syrup instead, you don't get this flavor."
"Ugh, that sounds like it's going to taste terrible."
On the surface, it might have looked like I was making some bizarre food crime, but every step was necessary.
Maybe because Sena was doing her little live commentary, the people watching didn't look too reassured either. They weren't saying anything, but they all seemed uneasy.
"It's not too late, bro. Don't waste your effort—just order in. Should we get Hanjeong Chicken or BQQ Chicken?"
"Shut that mouth."
I stirred the ingredients together and let the sauce simmer gently over low heat. It would have been better to let it mature in the fridge for a day, but we didn't have time for that, so I skipped it.
I dipped a spoon into the finished sauce and tasted it once.
"Yeah. That's it."
The flavor I'd once eaten so much of that I had grown sick of it was back on my tongue.
Sweet, sour, salty, and spicy all at once—a strange, addictive blend. Just spicy enough to tingle, but the kind of taste that kept pulling you back for more.
It probably wasn't great for your health, but then again, chicken had never been close to healthy in the first place.
One franchise even advertised itself as making "healthy chicken fried in extra virgin olive oil," but that was nonsense from start to finish.
Once you've deep-fried something in oil, how on earth could it be healthy?
Honestly, "healthy chicken" was a contradiction in terms.
I poured the finished sauce into a spray bottle I'd prepared in advance and handed it to Sena.
"Spray it on evenly."
"Can't I just brush it on?"
That was a good question.
"This way, the sauce coats it evenly. The pressure from spraying also helps it soak in a little deeper."
At the shop, we'd used a special air-pressure sprayer to apply the sauce, but since I didn't have one here, a spray bottle would have to do.
Sena applied the sauce carefully in her own clumsy way.
"Done."
But we still weren't finished.
I put the sauced chicken back into the oven and baked it for five more minutes.
The smell of delicious chicken spread through the house, and everyone's interest grew.
A little later, I took the finished chicken out of the oven and plated it.
That was my homemade Red King Chicken.
"Hmm, smells convincing enough."
I looked at Sena and said, "Try it."
She shook her head. "Huh? Me first? I don't really like chicken."
"What kind of nonsense is that coming from the girl who used to eat a whole chicken by herself?"
"Ah! I've been dieting lately, so I quit chicken."
"Don't you need pocket money?"
After a brief struggle with herself, Sena finally picked up a piece of chicken.
Of course she chose the drumstick. She really was my sister.
Under everyone's gaze, Sena squeezed her eyes shut and bit into the drumstick.
A moment later, her eyes flew wide open.
"How is it?"
At my question, Sena gave a thumbs-up and summed up the taste in a single sentence.
"This is insanely good!"