Chapter 453: At the Mercy of Somebody (3)

Fire taste. That was what he thought of at that moment. Bringing out fire taste from noodles was not popular yet, but when they talk about ‘jjampong’ or spicy Chinese seafood noodles, they have no choice but to mention fire taste. Some people criticized it as the cheap marketing tactics of Chinese restaurants, but Min-joon didn’t think it was bad.

‘In any case, if my dish can attract customers, at least it wouldn’t be a bad dish.’

After all, the quality of a chef depended on whether or not he or she could win over customers. Of course, he couldn’t fully support dishes that rely on chemical seasonings to attract customers, but he thought such a trend itself was meaningful.

In general, Koreans might think that they could find fire taste only in Chinese food, but this kind of cooking was more popular around the world than expected. For example, not only grill dishes but also smoked cooking and flambés, which use alcohol such as wine to make fire were dishes with fire taste.

As for Amila’s dish, Min-joon had to choose between two ways, namely bringing out fire taste with flambé through alcohol, or stir-frying vegetables or seafood after heating oil for a long time. In fact, the former was easier to make than the latter because it was difficult to create such a deep fire taste without using a strong flame.

‘Well, I had better use both methods.’

He had to bring out the fire taste even a little more for the dish he had in mind for Amila.

He looked at her and asked, “Do you have any good white wine? I would like a dry wine.”

“Well, if you don’t mind about cheap wine, of course I do. How about the Chardonnay Napa Valley?”

“Anything else? It’s so creamy that it won’t taste good.”

“Then… What about Biblia Chora? This has a lemon scent.”

“Oh, it’s okay. Give it to me.”

With his eyes twinkling, he received the wine bottle and had sipped it a bit. It tasted a little different from what he thought, but it was good enough for the taste he wanted to bring out.

‘Well, my expected cooking score is higher than expected.’

As soon as he thought of adding fire taste, his expected cooking score was 9 points.

He started preparing tomato sauce first. The first thing he had to do was simple, which was chopping the tomatoes and boil them in a pan. It would take roughly thirty minutes to boil it properly because if he did it in the middle of the cooking, the whole cooking sequence would be messed up. Next was seafood. He quickly picked up the squid and peeled it off with a kitchen towel while thinking about the recipe. Then he cut the squid and started trimming the shrimps and clams right away. He didn’t do it hurriedly, but skillfully.

Amila’s eyes glared at his nimble hand movement.

“Hey, June.”

“Say it.”

“How old is your sous chef?”

“I guess he’s 23. Oh, that’s right. I guess he recently had his 23rd birthday.”

“A sous chef at 23 years old? Do you think that makes any sense?”

“Of course it does make sense. These days, there are a lot who are head chefs at his age. The world is wide, and there are many genius chefs. Much more than we think.”

“I know that,” Amilla replied in a sullen voice. Of course, any chef can have excellent abilities for their age because the word ‘talent’ exists for such people. But this kind of quick response was not something Amila could expect from any chef.

When Amilla asked Min-joon to make pesce pasta, he did not hesitate for a moment.

So, she thought that unless he recreated the recipe he already knew, he would probably think of his own recipe while making the pasta.

‘Well, he’s not going to make ordinary pesce pasta.’

Of course, Amilla wasn’t asking for it because she simply wanted to eat it. Pesce pasta was often referred to as ordinary home-style meals. The messy sauce and the shape of the various ingredients randomly filled in it looked like a dish just to replenish the calories rather than a luxurious dish.

But it didn’t mean that it was easy to make pesce pasta. It was easier to make tomato pasta or aglio olio.

Pesce, it was the Italian word for fish. And when they wanted to refer to any pasta as pesce pasta, they usually meant one with boiling tomato sauce, seafood, and pasta in a pot.

Of course, it didn’t mean that all pesce pasta should be made like that. Sometimes some chefs made something like cream pasta, and others made something in the form of green pasta with basil pesto.

The important thing was that when making pesce pasta, a chef should be able to understand each seafood and perfectly calculate how long he should boil noodles in the sauce. So, even those who made a lot of pasta often found it hard to make a proper pesce pasta.

So, how could Min-joon make a delicious pesce pasta in an ordinary house like Amila’s where there was no kitchen tool to make strong heat for fire taste? Honestly, this was a very difficult test for any chef, so Min-joon might have been quite embarrassed and upset about Amila’s request.

‘He is not nervous at all…’ Amila thought to herself.

Even if he was competent enough to be a sous chef, she could not understand how he was so calm. Rapidly coping with an unexpected situation was more important than one’s cooking skill. Probably, Min-joon wouldn’t have had such a relaxed and calm attitude right now, if he hadn’t taken part in the Grand Chef or the Paris International Cooking Competition. Perhaps all these competitions made him competent enough to immediately respond to any menu order. Maybe that was why there were so many cooking competitions with only a small number of spectators.

Of course, Amila didn’t know that Min-joon already had many experiences with such competitions. That was why she was making a sullen expression as if she could not understand his cooking method, but he didn’t care. He even forgot why he was making this dish.

He was occupied with only one thought—make the best pesce pasta.

Although June had the long-term ambition of having the best restaurant and becoming the best chef, Min-joon’s dream and ambition was always short-term. For example, he was concerned with making a dish as delicious as possible, so there could be no food more delicious than what he made.

He started to fry some onions and green onions in oil. Roasting too much might obscure the taste of other dishes, so he took note of that. When he brought out the fire taste with proper oil, he put the pre-cooked seafood one after another.

Whenever the moisture on the surface of squid or shellfish came into contact with the heated oil, a loud sizzling sound arose. With the oil starting to sizzle in the pan, he gently touched the noodles that he had soaked in boiling water with chopsticks for cooking. The texture that he felt at the tip of the chopsticks was still strong.

‘If it’s hard at this moment, noodles are going to be a little softer than Al Dente.’

It was perfect. When it came to pasta, people tended to think blindly that Al Dente was the best, but Min-joon had begun to get out of his obsession with it a little. Pasta didn’t have to be in Al Dente state, but it should be in the most delicious state.

And the noodle that would go well with this soup wasn’t Al Dente, he thought. In other words, it would not match with this soup that would bring out the best of fire taste. What he had in mind was a sort of chewy texture of the noodles.

‘Can Amila accept this?’

Suddenly, he wondered if she would like this kind of pasta, but he didn’t have to care about it. It was impossible to think that everyone would always understand his cooking.

He poured white wine over the ingredients that he was roasting. At that moment, a sparkling fire soared as high as his eyes instantly. He quickly stirred the pot. It was meaningless to simply get the fire. As soon as the fire caught on, he had to let each ingredient pass through the fire, so that fire taste could penetrate deeper. Then he took out the tomatoes he just boiled and ground them in a blender. After that, he started pouring it over the pan where he was frying the seafood and vegetables.

Watching him cook, Amila made an expression, wondering if his past was too ordinary but he didn’t care because she would soon find out that although his pasta didn’t look impressive, he had a reason for doing flambé while pouring wine.

He was watching the sizzling pesce soup for some time. He then checked the noodles and put them in the pot with some broth. If he stopped there, his pasta would be the perfect Al Dente, but if he boiled it until the noodles and sauce mixed well, it would be cooked as much as he wanted.

“Done?” Amila asked.

“Yeah, let me put some parsley leaves on it.”

“Well, it’s so easy, isn’t it?”

Amilla did not hide her disappointment. She asked June about his age and experiences, and when she saw the pesce pasta he made, she thought he didn’t hesitate to do it because it was just an ordinary pesce pasta, contrary to her expectations for an extraordinary one. But Min-joon understood her.

He said calmly, “I’ll remember what you just said. You will have to cancel it.”

“Well, do you think so?”

Since she had watched him cooking the whole process, Amila couldn’t figure out whether he made any fresh or different dish from what she used to know.

With Amila pulling a bar chair to the island, he slowly put some pesce pasta on her plate with a few parsley leaves on it.

Watching him quietly, Amilla sighed for a moment, then looked at him with a smile.

Although she didn’t expect much from the pesce pasta, she needed to try it to save his face.

“Thanks for the pasta.”

“I know you will enjoy it.”

She was surprised at his casual reply, but it was not unusual, given that he was June’s new sous chef. Thinking like that, she was about to put the fork to her mouth when she suddenly stopped even before it touched her lips. She frowned as if she found something strange. Then she looked at the noodles for a moment because of the strong smell.

She sniffed her nose and looked back at the noodles. She could not figure out what kind of smell it was from the noodles. It was natural she felt so, for making the soup with fire taste was not common in pasta dishes.

After pondering over it for a moment, she put the pasta in her mouth, exposed to the fire taste of the pesce pasta that would dispel her long prejudices.

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