Recently, Min-joon had often seen his cooking level 10, but in fact, he thought that it was hard for him to reach that level without Kaya’s help, given his current skills. If somebody had asked him to make this dish alone, he would have never done it in a week or even one year, for she had various different ideas and perspectives that he could not even imagine. In short, he would not have made the current dish without her help.
That was why one’s talent was beautiful, which was something that one could not have by making an effort alone. One was born with it. Sometimes, even if a person searched for a certain talent all over the world, they could only find it in one person. So, it was rarer than a jewel. That was called talent. That was why those without talent struggled to develop it so desperately day and night.
And now, Min-joon and Kaya’s recipe was full of the fruit and cruelty of their talent. Honestly, if Min-joon had not developed this recipe right now, he would have felt jealous about it the moment he saw it.
What they made right now wasn’t simply to express the taste of each ingredient. This was a dish that united the cuisines of the East and the West. It was the most French but at the same time, the most unfamiliar to them.
Bastien asked, “Is this a challenging dish?”
“Well, don’t you think we have continued to make challenging dishes in this contest?”
“I agree…”
That was true. Since they didn’t know the taste of the ingredients, the pair cooked escargot for the first time in this contest to understand its characteristics. So, Bastien felt like the word challenge was always associated with the pair.
At that moment, Sophie opened her mouth as if she was so curious.
“How about telling us about it? Do I have to be ready to be surprised without even knowing what it is?”
“Well, not necessarily. But you had better have some expectations. I would say you can enjoy the taste of the soft tofu coated on top of the foie gras in this dish. Oh, this is really difficult to explain. Min-joon, can you explain instead?”
“I’ll just tell you the combinations of the ingredients. I’m going to put the chicken legs in a cylinder to get the frame and make a donut-shaped hole in the middle. Then I will smoke it crispy on the outside and moist inside.”
“What’s next?”
“I’ll apply a syrup made from red wine and sugar over the chicken, then get the foie gras thinly spread over it and grill it with a torch.”
Sophie nodded. She knew there was nothing special about the dish. Of course, it was pretty attractive to make foie gras thin like a strip, but it was more attractive as a plating than as a dish.
The important thing was what came next, namely, sauce. Depending on the sauce, this dish could surprise or disappoint the judges. Of course, considering the pair’s cooking skills, it would definitely taste very delicious.
‘Is it fun?’
Sophie was quite surprised to find herself thinking that way.
As a chef herself, not as a French woman, Sophie tended to pursue taste more than fun in cooking. It wasn’t that she didn’t value fun in cooking. However, she always thought that the most important thing in cooking was taste, so she tended to think that great taste was great fun.
So, she was pretty surprised to know that she was thinking about the fun, not taste, of the pair’s dish at the moment. At the same time, she had no choice but to admire them because cooking could change them with fixed perceptions of cooking. Was it because of their talent shining like a star? Or was it because of their guts and adventurism as young men?
Sophie didn’t agonize for long because Kaya already began to explain about the sauce.
“I’m going to put tofu in that small hole in the middle, soft tofu.”
“Tofu?”
“Yes. After putting that on a powdered sauce made with soy sauce and white wine, I’m going to put foam made with wasabi again.”
“It’s kind of tofu sushi, no, chicken sushi? Anyway, it feels like sushi.”
“I guess so in that respect. And, that’s why this dish is fun. Even if you eat one dish, you can feel the completely separate taste of each ingredient. Of course, they don’t disturb each other’s taste.”
The spectators began to whisper after hearing her explanation. Since many of them were chefs, they obviously might feel a lot about the pair’s recipe idea, wondering if they could really make it.
Actually, the judges felt the same way, let alone the Dobby pair.
Dobby turned to Eva and opened his mouth.
“Man, their idea is cool.”
“Well, it’s been good all the time.”
“But this time, it’s very good. I feel something like a sense of crisis. Actually, I was thinking of buying a coupe with the cash prize if I won in this contest…”
Eva laughed bitterly at his ridiculous joke in this situation. Obviously, he cracked such a silly joke to ease his tense mood.
“Well, I wanted to see your pride humbled, but it’s not very pleasant to see you like this.”
“Did you want to put me in my place here? Why?”
“Why are you asking when you know my answer already? Anyway, I feel sorry to see you already getting cold feet…”
When she said that, he shrugged at her silently. He didn’t even balk at her.
She calmly opened her mouth.
“Anyway, try to pretend to get on your high horse. Play Pinocchio! I want you to win and get out of the place as soon as possible, so I can take back your sous chef position!”
“Oh, that thing…”
“…”
“Let’s talk about that later,” Dobby replied with a smile.
Certainly, this moment was one of the most important moments in his life. It wasn’t just because of the $1 million prize money. This was the moment when the judges would evaluate the cooking skills that he had cultivated all his life.
Only then did Dobby seem to understand what Min-joon once said. Min-joon told him he was thrilled not because of the competition but because of his desire to show his dish to somebody else. Actually, Dobby loved the competition more than anybody else without knowing the real pleasure hidden in the competition.
Yes, Dobby loved the competition. Someone might find him weird. Except for this competition, he had never been defeated in a cooking competition. As a chef, he was overwhelmingly excellent. So much so that there were no rivals around him.
That was why he could love the competition more. But now he had learned the bitter taste of defeat.
He also knew how to overcome defeat after that.
He looked at Min-joon and Kaya, the two nasty geeks who defeated him in this contest.
“I can’t be a Pinocchio. I don’t want to be a fake here.”
“Then, win. Yeah, let’s win,” Eva murmured.
“I don’t want to lose today.”
“Because of the one million dollar prize?”
“Stop it.”
As if she didn’t want to talk with him anymore, she turned her head.
He smiled playfully, with his eyes sparkling.
A little later, the judges approached them as well and talked with them briefly.
While explaining to them about the dish he and Eva would make, Dobby kept thinking about the Min-joon pair’s dish. It was not because he was conscious of competing with them because their recipe idea was really attractive.
And the Min-joon pair’s cooking process was just as attractive as the recipe.
As soon as the competition started, Min-joon went straight to the pantry to gather the ingredients, while Kaya turned on the heat. It was the Min-joon pair who started cooking first as soon as he brought the ingredients. He was in charge of trimming chicken and making syrup as well as chopping with a knife. He began to elaborately sculpt the flesh of the chicken thigh with a sharp knife. And he put it in a circular mold to get it in shape.
The audience began to evaluate each step of Min-joon’s cooking such as the way he held the knife and trimmed the bones because checking out a chef’s way of cutting was the best way to size up his or her skills. And what they concluded was almost the same. They discovered that their current cooking skills were the outcome of their constant efforts. Of course, some of them wondered if the pair relied on their senses and talent, but soon, they didn’t think so after confirming the pair’s cooking right before their eyes.
It was not simply because the chefs who came today were Min-joon and Kaya’s fans. More precisely, there were not many who were their fans here. They were curious about the pair rather than being respectful about them because they shook the French cuisine world by beating all the French chefs in this contest.
So, they wanted to know what Min-joon and Kaya have, and what they didn’t have, compared with the pair. They didn’t think it was just cooking skills. Of course, they didn’t think Min-joon and Kaya were not good chefs because they would not have advanced to the finals if they were mediocre chefs.
However, there was a limit to one’s cooking skills. What the star chefs had wasn’t just their skills. They had something else. So, they wanted to check it out. And that was pretty logical.
Comparing their cooking levels, Dobby was higher than Min-joon and Kaya.
But what drew their attention was not Dobby but Min-joon and Kaya.
The impact of each dish they made until now was more powerful than the Dobby pair.
If so, what was the difference? Why were the Min-joon pair always drawing their attention?
Min-joon and Kaya busied themselves preparing the dish amid their intense attention.
They boiled wine and sugar to make syrup then added foie gras to a perfectly cooked chicken thigh patty and grilled it with a torch. The audience chefs who watched it had no choice but to gulp, immersed in their cooking.
This was a new discovery to them. The pair certainly know cooking. It was clear that the pair were great chefs, but their cooking skills did not go beyond the general standards. But what made them want to stand beside the pair, watching their cooking? Was it the power of their recipe?
Or their satisfied smile? Their smile seemed to show that they understood and enjoyed cooking better than anyone else. Or was it their original recipe idea that no other chef could easily think of? Perhaps, it was their talent that they could fully understand human instincts, appetite, and gluttony, and instinctively stimulate the desire for taste. Otherwise, it was impossible for the pair to make them so curious like this. Even some of them wanted to go back to their restaurants to make the same dish that the pair was making now.
With the chefs in the stand wondering and admiring their cooking, the pair were finally done.
Kaya asked first, “Have you thought of any name for this dish?”
“Name?”
“Yeah.”
She smiled, looking at the dish that made hundreds of chefs in the stand drool over it.
“How about Soft Tofu Choters?” he said, as if he coined it by combining his last name Cho and her surnname Reuters.
She felt he wasn’t good at naming food.
