Chapter 52

There was no need for hesitation. As soon as he was given the two choices, Cho Min Joon made his choice.

Allan and Joseph were two completely different chefs. Joseph tended to stick to the traditional dishes while Allan liked to make new and novel attempts.

No one was better than the other, but he felt that if he worked under Joseph, he would be able to learn more about handling skills than recipes, but it was best to improve his recipe skills as much as possible. After all, Cho Min Joon’s current strong point was recipe formation through his system.

Cho Min Joon glanced around him. There was a total of 7 contestants who left the kitchen with him. Kaya, Anderson, Hugo, Carlos, and more. Chloe and Marco stayed in the kitchen.

Anderson was the most unexpected one out of them all. After all, Anderson tended to be strict both in terms of cooking and personality. He was more suited for Joseph’s traditional nature than making new attempts, or so Cho Min Joon thought.

He looked over at Anderson, but Anderson continued to walk while knitting his brows.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“… What is it? You’re making me curious now.”

“It’s really nothing. I’m just fascinated that you picked Allan instead of Joseph.”

“Why is that fascinating?”

“Just because. You’re usually pretty traditional yourself.”

Anderson smiled as he answered, “If you can master tradition, you can make anything.”

“Yeah, yeah. Good for you.”

Cho Min Joon shook his head. Anderson knitted his brows at Cho Min Joon and then bit down on his lip. Kaya, who was watching both of them, clicked her tongue as she asked, “Are you two children?”

“… It feels weird hearing that from you.”

Kaya was the most childish and rebellious contestant here. Kaya spoke in a shameless way.

“I’m still in my teens. That means I don’t have to be mature yet.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

Cho Min Joon nodded and smiled.

The Grand Chef House’s garden was as big as a soccer field. Cho Min Joon walked with great anxiousness. Was this the right decision? He didn’t know. He wouldn’t know until he tried it.

Allan was standing under a thick bud tree. Beside him was a table, and on top of the table was a bowl with a lid on top. Every time the wind shook the tree branches, little bits of sunlight appeared on Allan before disappearing again. It almost looked like a romantic computer background.

“Is it the 7 of you? That’s more than I expected. I thought you all hated me.”

No one knew if Allan was serious or kidding. Cho Min Joon and the other contestants looked at Allan awkwardly. They felt a sense of distance that kept them from being able to be comfortable with him. It was uncertain if he had a world of his own or if he was four-dimensional. Allan said, “What kind of mission do you think this is, Hugo? Answer me.”

“Um… We either have to follow your signature dish or serve you a dish you’d like. I think it’s one of the two.”

“It’s closer to the latter.”

Allan looked at everyone with a mysterious look on his face. He then said, “Before I announce the topic of this mission, let me ask you something. I’ll give you one last chance to pick Joseph instead. Are you sure you don’t want to switch?”

The contestants just looked at him blankly as if they had no intention of changing. There was no point in changing when they didn’t even know the mission yet. Allan nodded.

“Great. Then let me explain the mission.”

Allan opened the lid. At that moment, Cho Min Joon laughed. He looked at the contents of the bowl with a dispirited look on his face. It looked as though it was made with basics rather than with the goal of making it fancy. He noticed clean and white rice grains, and he smelled cheese with a hint of onion.

Risotto. Koreans usually thought of it as Italian fried rice, but it was actually closer to porridge than rice. In Italy, it was considered at the same level of pasta and ravioli. At formal dinners, it often replaced pasta, but in many homecooked meals, it was often used as an entire meal.

It was a dish that was as loved as pasta and pizza in Italy. Cho Min Joon suddenly got suspicious. Was Allan Italian? He was never interested in him enough to know where he was from, but luckily, that question was soon answered. Allan put a spoonful of risotto in each of the 7 plates as he explained, “I’m from Italy. I’ve eaten pasta and risotto all the time growing up, so I’m better able to judge them. You must make a risotto that will satisfy me as well as the public. You may use whatever ingredient you’d like as long as it’s in the form of risotto.

Allan spoke with a serious voice. Cho Min Joon looked around at the others. Three of them looked confident while the other 3 didn’t look so confident. Anderson and Hugo were the confident ones. Come to think of it, Hugo once made the Italian dish Ossobuco perfectly.

Hugo’s secret was not surprising. It was experience. His Italian grandmother had made him lots of Italian dishes growing up, so he made many as well. Since Ossobuco was one of his best dishes, it was no wonder he got an 8 for it.

‘I guess that means if both cooking level and experience level overlap, you get the best results…’

He was actually jealous. Since Cho Min Joon’s mother was never a good look, he was never able to get a taste of good cooking. Lee Hye Sun’s cooking always tasted bland, and at times, it wasn’t even fully cooked.

That was Cho Min Joon’s problem right there. He didn’t have a basic dish. When he saw a delicious-looking recipe on the internet or TV, he copied it. He didn’t discriminate between borders and tried all sorts of different foods, but there wasn’t a single dish that he could call his own. Cho Min Joon’s color contained in his dishes was transparent and boring.

He felt frustrated, but he couldn’t do anything about it. It wasn’t a matter of his lack of experience, but his lack of individuality.

At that moment, Allan looked at Cho Min Joon and asked, “Min Joon, I remember you having the perfect palate. Will you try to guess all of the ingredients in this risotto?”

He didn’t see that coming, but he also understood. Since he showed off his skill last time, he couldn’t have forgotten. Cho Min Joon put the risotto in his mouth and chewed it carefully before saying.

“1:1 ratio of shallot and onion. The onion was sliced into thin slices and the rice is Arborio. Since it’s an Italian dish, it’s best to use Italian rice. It’s obvious, but salt and dry wine were added as well.”

Cho Min Joon took a deep breath. The contestants stared at Cho Min Joon. He then continued,

“I taste Parmigiano cheese. There are some pepper and olive oil. The broth is a shellfish broth. I think that’s it.”

“… You’re right.”

Allan looked at Cho Min Joon with a shocked face. There were some food critics who could get every single ingredient right like Cho Min Joon, but not even they could call them all out with such confidence. He differentiated shallot from an onion. That was difficult to do. For most average people, they couldn’t even differentiate cola from Pepsi.

He looked forward to Cho Min Joon’s cooking. The painting of a color-blind artist and that of an artist who can see color was bound to be different. After all, they were looking at two different worlds, and Cho Min Joon’s world of flavor had no limits. That was what Allan believed. Once Cho Min Joon completed his own flavor, that flavor was going to be more detailed and refined than anybody else’s.

The contestants also looked chocked. They knew Cho Min Joon had the perfect palate, but they still couldn’t get used to his skills. Anderson knitted his brows and tasted the risotto to confirm for himself, but it was hard. The flavors were so well-mixed together that they were lost in each other.

‘How did he find all of those ingredients?’

He was simply jealous. He had a feeling Cho Min Joon’s world of flavors was much more beautiful and happier than anyone else’s. Of course, the reality was a little different from that.

“Okay, then. Let’s move on to the main event. As you heard from Min Joon, no special ingredient was added to this risotto. They’re all basic ingredients, and the flavor is… I’m embarrassed to say this myself, but I’m sure it was satisfactory.”

The contestants nodded. Allan’s risotto was surely delicious. Allan continued, “I just want to give you one warning. A risotto must taste like a risotto. Please don’t be too greedy. You have to keep that in mind in order to make a good risotto.”

“… Risotto.”

Kaya mumbled in a quiet voice. Her angry voice proved that she was nervous. She was the type to get feisty when she felt scared.

It was clear that Kaya didn’t have much experience with risotto. The same went for Carlos. Their faces were so pale that even Cho Min Joon felt bad for them.

‘Do I look like that, too?’

Cho Min Joon touched his own face, but there was no way he could find out his own expression by doing that. Allan said, “Joseph’s team will have one contestant go home and so will my team, but of course, if all of you are perfect, no one will have to go home. I hope that day will come. Let’s get started.”

Compared to the distance they walked to get to the garden, the mission announcement was a little underwhelming, but of course, they probably looked quite nervous through the camera…

“Are you good at making risotto?”

Cho Min Joon turned his head at the sound of Kaya’s voice. Cho Min Joon shook his head as he answered.

“It’s not my specialty, but I’ll have to do my best.”

“I feel like nothing’s been your specialty so far.”

“… If I think about it, I don’t think I have a specialty.”

In response, Kaya laughed. She then tried to hold back her laughter as she said, “At least your food tastes good.”

“… Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, wait. Let’s stop. The cameras will edit that, too.”

When he said that, the cameraman following Kaya around glared. When the cameraman laughed with a shocked look on his face, Kaya spoke in a blunt voice, “You always go around filming stuff like this.”

The cameraman didn’t answer, but Kaya didn’t expect an answer and just looked back at Cho Min Joon. The cameraman smiled again. ‘How is it that that young lady’s attitude looks even more charming through the camera?’