Chapter 168 - Chapter 168: Friendly Judge (3)

“Oh, they must be cooking.”

“… I’m watching, too.”

Janet answered in a chic voice. The kitchen, was it to show an example? Cho Min Joon and Anderson stood in front of the cooking station. Cho Min Joon spoke in a low but clear voice, “There are two dishes you need to make. The first is tomato spaghetti with shrimp and scallops, and salmon steak with fried radish and veloute sauce. Here are the recipes.”

“Me and Min Joon will now show you an example of the pasta and steak. If there’s anything you don’t understand from the recipes, please watch us for reference. Then… let’s begin.”

They began cooking before the contestants could even get their minds together. Anderson took over the tomato spaghetti while Cho Min Joon took over the salmon steak.

It wasn’t a complicated dish, but that didn’t mean it was easy either. What many people misunderstood was that the simpler the process, the easier the dish. But that wasn’t true.

Even when trying to fry a fish with salt, many people burnt the outside because they couldn’t control the heat. And it wasn’t just the beginners. Chefs, even chefs with good skills easily burnt fish when they let their guard down.

The same went for tomato spaghetti. Kinds of pasta that used tomato as a base for the sauce often had difficulty in the process of making the sauce. And the reason was simple, because it was hard to make the flavor of the tomato sauce come alive.

When frying raw tomatoes over the fire, the hardest part was cooking them just right. Since there was water in the crushed tomatoes, it was hard to judge when it was cooked, and they had to rely on their tongue, but that wasn’t easy either. It wasn’t easy to constantly smell the scent of the tomato and get the flavor just right.

Of course, there was also the method of using experienced sense as well as a timer. But in order to rely on sense, one needed the tastebuds of someone like Kaya, so what the contestants had to rely on was the time of cooking that was written on the recipe.

‘Yeah, that’s how it is for contestants.’

Cho Min Joon opened his eyes sharply. The recipes were both worth 8 points. Rachel’s recipe was simple. Vegetable broth, veloute sauce made of thyme, fresh cream, and lemon zest, along with radish fried with corn starch. On top of that, she would add the fried salmon on top with lemon salt and pepper, and then flambee everything with white wine.

It was a good recipe to check for the basics. When frying unfamiliar ingredients, it was easy to be taken aback, and radish was even worse. Grilling salmon was probably familiar to most, but that didn’t matter. It was all about how much they had cooked the familiar dish in such a nervewracking environment.

Cho Min Joon started off by preparing the materials. First came the vegetable broth. Cho Min Joon turned on the stove and picked up the knife. Cho Min Joon didn’t hesitate for a single moment. He began to slice the vegetables on the cutting board into large pieces.

After preparing the broth ingredients, it was time to work on the veloute sauce. Cho Min Joon melted the butter with flour. That part wasn’t hard. The problem was the matter of boiling it down so that it wouldn’t burn while also adding other broth ingredients. If he didn’t stir it frequently, it was easy to burn.

So even while working on other things, he had to keep his attention on the veloute sauce. That was the difficult part of the test. When running a business, the veloute sauce was often prepared ahead of time, but in this case, they had to prepare everything. It was easy to lose focus, and as a result, lack of quality.

If it was anyone else, that would’ve been the case.

But Cho Min Joon remained unshaken. Even while making the flour, frying, making lemon salt, and grilling salmon on the frying pan, Cho Min Joon wasn’t taken aback. It was almost as if there were two people working on it, not just one.

“I thought the show might’ve exaggerated his skills… But is that really someone with no kitchen experience?”

“… I see why people call him a genius.”

“It’s different for Anderson since he’s worked at his parents’ restaurant before…”

The contestants whispered to each other in awe. He looked perfect, and it was inevitable. Cho Min Joon put his soul onto the cooking station every time he completed a Grand Chef mission.

It was a different situation from a real kitchen. Restricted time, and unfamiliar themes. It wasn’t just once or twice that he had to focus more than ever before. And Cho Min Joon didn’t lose the lessons he learned from what he experienced. In order to keep that sense alive, he stood in front of the cooking station instead of sleeping.

And that led to today and right now. It wasn’t surprising that Cho Min Joon didn’t show any flaws. An Asian man with shaved black hair who was standing in the middle of the contestants took turns looking at Cho Min Joon’s eyes and hands.

‘He’s so cool…’

The man looked at Cho Min Joon with admiration. There was a time when he wanted to quit being a chef, but that was when he learned about Cho Min Joon. Grand Chef, the beginner chef who made his presence known among many amateur chefs, and the man with the perfect palate.

Aside from being Asian, his abilities were much more superior than his to be compared, but what Garrick thought was cool wasn’t Cho Min Joon’s abilities. It was his attitude. Whenever he cooked, his face and fingers, as well as his heart, could be felt in his dishes. Love and tenacity, he could sense all of that through the screen, and now, he was seeing it in person.

And it wasn’t just Garrick who sensed such things. It wasn’t just Cho Min Joon, but Anderson who also gave off a similar attitude. What they were preparing were examples, but they were cooking as if it was a real competition.

Cooking, in a sense, it was a broad field. But that also meant that it was a field where focusing was hard. That was what many experienced chefs had said. They cooked all of their lives, but they didn’t know what cooking meant. They weren’t saying it out of modesty. They really had no idea.

Some would say using the knife and fire and adding ingredients was cooking, but no chef was satisfied with that answer. What they chased after all of their lives wasn’t that but cooking itself, and what made the small difference between dishes was the intent behind cooking.

And Cho Min Joon and Anderson looked very certain. They knew very well what they were doing and what path they were walking. They knew what cooking was. They had to. If they hadn’t, they would’ve had looked like they were in love. A person couldn’t love what he or she didn’t know.

‘These kids… are teaching me.’

Rachel smiled while watching from afar. She felt as though watching them helped her remind her of the path that she had forgotten.

The dishes were complete. Cho Min Joon looked down at his dish as if he was satisfied. On top of veloute sauce was fried radish, and the salmon steak on top was shiny with a crispy peel. The score was 8 points. That meant he didn’t make a mistake.

Anderson finished his dish without any mistakes either. Among the beautiful pieces of scallop, little pieces of shrimp could be found within the spaghetti noodles. Anderson opened his mouth.

“What do you think? Do you get it?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not good.”

In response to one of the contestants’ answer, Cho Min Joon immediately answered. He tapped the salmon steak and said, “The key is always in the flavor. Every single gesture I made while cooking is contained on this plate, so you must taste it.”

Cho Min Joon sliced the radish and salmon. It was not enough for 15 people to taste, but since it was just to taste, it didn’t matter. The same went for Anderson. But in his case, they just had to taste the sauce. After all, what they had to check that the recipe didn’t tell them was how well the tomato sauce needed to be cooked.

Gerrick put a piece of Cho Min Joon’s salmon into his mouth with an excited face. The size of the radish and salmon was no bigger than his thumb. But just as his teeth crushed into the crispy skin and the moist meat, the sweet buttery scent of the veloute sauce with lemon zest spread throughout his mouth, and the salmon on top of his tongue melted like ice cream.

“Ah…!”

That was when he moaned. The taste was so charming that it made him forget his nervousness. They looked at Cho Min Joon with surprise. Some of them thought that he only obtained the position of demi chef because of his image as the perfect palate on TV shows.

But tasting his food changed their minds. Not a single person believed that they were more skilled than Cho Min Joon. Cho Min Joon deserved to be a demi chef, and they would be honored to work as his assistant.

The same went for Anderson’s tomato spaghetti. The sauce on the noodles heated up their bodies so much, and they wondered if tomato had always been so sweet.

‘Am I… supposed to make this?’

That thought made their hearts pound. Gerrick clenched his fists. Could he do it? He felt nervous but wanted to achieve it at the same time. He wanted to stand behind Cho Min Joon. He wanted to be his assistant. The biggest gem of the restaurant was Rachel, but he wanted to follow his footsteps first.

As soon as the 15 contestants stood in front of the cooking station, the energy changed completely. During the old days, there were around 25 people in the kitchen. Cho Min Joon walked around the cooking station and watched them cook.

The first dish was Anderson’s pasta. Just as they existed, they were struggling in the process of making the tomato sauce. Cho Min Joon watched as some of them cooked in a stable manner. Those who looked promising were level 6.

But that didn’t mean they were cooking effortlessly. It couldn’t be helped. Just because the predicted score was 8 didn’t mean anyone could make it happen.

‘… Come to think of it, since when did I think making an 8-point dish was easy?’

Of course, creating a recipe from scratch was still hard, but recreating them was easy. Of course, most of the 9 and 10-point dishes at restaurants were made by demi chefs of levels 6 and 7 as well as their assistants… But that was only possible because they practiced over and over to become the hands of the head chef.

He knew that a higher score didn’t mean it was a better dish, but no high-level dish was easy. It included a complicated process, and great focus was required. Even for the spaghetti, it looked easy, but the sauce had to be made from scratch.

He felt that he grew quickly in a short period of time. It had only been half a year, but he learned and experienced lots.

The spaghetti was complete. While the contestants immediately moved on to the salmon steak, Cho Min Joon quietly looked at the spaghetti, and one stood out. Only one had 8 points.

‘… Gerrick.’

He probably focused greatly while making the dish. Cho Min Joon put his spaghetti in his mouth. He then nodded and whispered to Anderson, “Hey, this is almost exactly like yours.”

“… Mine tastes a little better.”

“Do you have to always have pride at times like this?”

“Hmph, pride knows no time or place.”

“You’re right. I guess.”

By the time they tasted every dish and scored them, the contestants were grilling the salmon on their pans. Cho Min Joon looked at one contestant and knitted his brows. He must’ve been nervous because the fire under his pan was too strong.

Even if it was an exam, he felt bad leaving him be and letting the salmon suffer. Cho Min Joon approached Rachel and pointed at the contestant.

“Should I leave that alone?”

“Go and let him know. That poor salmon.”

In response, Cho Min Joon nodded with a bright face. No chef could tolerate ingredients going to waste. Cho Min Joon walked to the contestant and opened his mouth.

“What do you think about wasting ingredients?”

“That must never be done as a chef. The first pillar of a kitchen is customer satisfaction and the second pillar is good finances.”

“Then what are you doing right now? Don’t you hear the salmon screaming?”

In response, The contestant flinched and flipped the salmon. And that wasn’t all. Cho Min Joon continued to spot flaws in the contestants. It was different from Anderson, who just watched from the side.

“We asked you to make veloute sauce, not lava sauce. Reduce the heat.”

“You must like melodramas. The salmon is closer to the pan than any real-life couple.”

“We asked you to flame it, not reduce the white wine.”

After a while, the contestants gulped every time Cho Min Joon came near. Rachel looked at Cho Min Joon with surprise. She didn’t think he had it in him to tell them things they didn’t want to hear. He was stricter than expected.

That was what she expected from Anderson. Since she didn’t expect this situation, Rachel spoke to Anderson in a surprised voice, “Min Joon has charisma. I thought he was a softie.”

Anderson shrugged and said, “He’s a wild Tinker Bell.”