God of Cooking
God of Cooking - Chapter 17-18

Chapter 17: The 100 chefs (3)

Posted on May 19, 2016 by bsubak — 15 Comments ↓

The catfish dough seemed like a white background with a green dot in it. Frankly, it wasn’t splendid nor was a nice to see. But meatball was usually eaten like that. It was boring and seemed hard to eat. Instead of it being a disadvantage was rather an unique characteristic.

Jo Minjoon rolled the dough roundly with his thumb and his index finger. And then, he put it on the steamer. He was thinking of cooking it like that.

The next part was to cook the stew properly. Jo Minjoon sliced the garlics thinly and the scallions. Then, he greased the wok and started to fry it like that. Of course, after all he had done, it wasn’t that he changed the course of his cooking. Before cooking the stew, you gave it an oily sensation. And depending on that, it could change the hot flavor.

When the garlic and the scallions were cooked to an extent, Jo Minjoon put in the onions. The onions, that were cut horizontally, lost all of its strength when put on the scorching wok. And it was time to put in the gravy. Jo Minjoon covered the sieve with a cotton cloth, and poured the gravy on top of it. On one hand, the sieve. On the other one, the pot. The gravy wasn’t much but still, it was a rather bothersome posture.

When the gravy flowed through the wok, the moment the water met the oil, it produced a sizzling sound. And at the same time, the gravy’s deep aroma flowed. The participants who were near him couldn’t help but turn to it. It was that deep. And at the same time Jo Minjoon was sure. That he had succeeded. He could guess that only by smelling. It wasn’t because he had made it many times before. But the aroma contained the flavor itself. The fresh flavor of the vegetables, and the unique clean flavor of the catfish.

Of course he had to taste it to know if it was salty or not. Jo Minjoon seasoned it with soy sauce and salt. He couldn’t use much of the soy sauce. He could season it, but it would dye it with it’s black colour if used too much. Then you would wonder if you could only use salt, but the flavor was different. The saltiness of the salt and of the soy sauce were completely different. And it didn’t always have a salty flavor. It had the flavor of soy sauce. It was sour, and had a sharp taste. That was soy sauce.

Now it wasn’t different to a completed dish. But he didn’t want to end it like this. To only present the gravy with the meatballs, he couldn’t help but remembering what Alan had pointed out to him before.

So what he chose was catfish skin fry. Jo Minjoon buried the already peeled skin on starch. And then started to fry it on the greased pan. It didn’t take that long. After putting the whitely fried catfish skin on top of the counter, the only thing left to do was to wait.

Jo Minjoon looked at his surroundings. The participants were still preparing their dishes. Jo Minjoon that was looking at them all over stopped at one person. It was Kaya. On her frying pan surged flames to what she was cooking. Was she cooking a chinese dish? Jo Minjoon searched through his memories. She was probably making Tangsuyuk(탕수육).

Kaya was british american, but her dishes weren’t limited to western ones. She really cooked a wide variety of foods.

Because of that, Kaya talked about her background on broadcast. Since she was small, she had to help her mother on selling fruits. Kids their age were playing with toys and dolls, while she played together with the market merchants. However, that experience helped tremendously on her tasting experiences. Because there were various ingredients and foods that couldn’t normally be seen, nor tasted.

Of course, if a normal person was in that situation, even if they knew the varieties, they wouldn’t know deeply about it’s flavor. Because it was market food, it was really simple. And the complicated thing could only be the grilled eel Kaya had cooked before.

However, even if they ate the same dishes, Kaya tasted different things. For normal people a minimum difference couldn’t be felt. But Kaya felt one grain of salt as one tablespoon of it. Even on the same dishes, if she seasoned it once, it became even more delicious. Because it was that kind of ability, the market could be the perfect school for her.

Even the way Kaya approached cooking, the method was different. When a part timer that worked on a roasted food on a skewer (꼬치구이) house flipped the stick following the recipe, Kaya could know how much it took him to flip it, and how the sliced parts of the meat could influence it’s roasting. It wasn’t that she was doing it consciously. She comprehended it all naturally.

She was born with it. It couldn’t be explained otherwise. Jo Minjoon got a thought. That he wanted to be a judge. That he wanted to try Kaya’s food on the judge’s seat. Aside from cooking, just knowing that the dish was made by Kaya held great prestige.

It was at that moment that he was looking at her. Alan approached Jo Minjoon’s table. After he saw the pots over the fire, he opened his mouth.

“What are you making?”

“Catfish meatball stew.”

“Catfish meatball stew? Hmm… Did you fry this skin?”

“Yes. A long time ago, I saw once that people from southern asia ate it like a snack.”

“Do you think it will suit your dish?”

“Yes. It will.”

Jo Minjoon’s had a pretty confident attitude. Even Alan, that was listening to him got surprised. He had been a judge for all of the previous seasons, but he had never seen someone this confident. Because, even if you did cook well, in front of the judges, you couldn’t help but showing no confidence.

Alan frowned. Normally there were two cases for this. The first was where you had real experience and talent, and the second was the case that you did know how to give it flavor, but didn’t know how to make the best out of it. Honestly, Alan thought it was the latter. Jo Minjoon was young. He was only 21 by American standards. To be confident on his dish when he didn’t receive proper education, he was really young.

“…….I expect that your dish turns out as good as your confidence.”

Alan talked like that and left. Jo Minjoon felt that Alan didn’t receive his confidence that well. However he didn’t care. Because he was going to let his dish do the talking.

The given time was almost finished. On the cooking preparations, there were many who got kicked out because of their mistakes. They numbered almost twenty. Jo Minjoon took out the meatballs from the steamer. Fortunately, they were perfectly cooked. As soon as he opened the steamer, he could feel the aroma of the fish, tofu and coriander. And that sensation was so charming he wanted to immediately put it in his mouth. So he did.

And a smile formed on Jo Minjoon’s face. Could it be because of the satisfaction that the dish was well made? Or the natural smile that blossomed when you ate something delicious? Either way, the conclusion was the same. The meatball was perfect.

Jo Minjoon poured the gravy on a concave dish, and placed the meatballs on top of it. The catfish fried skin was acting as a garnish but, it had a quite boring look. Maybe even this time he was going to hear complaints about his decorations.

However just because of that, he didn’t want to get greedy and put on a lot of garnishes. Because if you wanted to give a momentary pleasure and forget pleasuring the tongue, it was just meaningless.

“Stop! Everybody stop your hands. Tiime is over.”

Alan shouted with a sharp voice. Sighs could be heard here and there. Some were sighs of relief and some were dejected sighs. Jo Minjoon slightly glanced at Kaya. There was nothing different with the past. In front of her was placed a well done catfish tangsuyuk.

There wasn’t time to waste and the judging started immediately. There were many people that got disqualified while cooking, but there were still as many as 60 participants left. There wasn’t time to make it too long, so sometimes, the judges didn’t even eat the dishes and evaluated depending of how well was the interior cooked.

In the middle of cooking, Jo Minjoon felt a strange feeling. It was that right in front of his eyes, many people were being disqualified. At times because of a bad slice, and on others, because of a bite of the meat. It seemed like that scenery contained the chefs world. Cooking. A world that solely depended on that one thing.

There wasn’t even a word of sympathy, nor encouragement. The only thing was ‘it’s delicious’ and ‘it’s not’. There were also times that they threw the cooking on the dish to the bin. You could shed tears by those excessive behaviors, but Jo Minjoon could understand them. It was unacceptable. For the ingredients to meet the wrong people and for them to make something that couldn’t be called cooking was something terrible. And much more if that was someone who was dreaming of becoming a chef.

And the judging time came to Jo Minjoon. The judges, after looking at Jo Minjoon’s catfish meatball stew, put it on their mouths. The catfish fried skin that made crumbling sounds inside the mouth accompanied the chewing meatballs. The three didn’t say a thing and just kept chewing. After that, they drank some of the soup. The one who opened his mouth was Joseph. He said shortly.

“It’s delicious.”

< The 100 chefs (3) > End

In the jail.

After eating breakfast, the prisoners started returning to their cells one by one.

In the third cell from the left in the southern hallway, four prisoners lay quietly on their beds. One fatty said in a low voice: “Big Brother, I talked to Boss Li during breakfast and he nodded in agreement. We’ll send three of our professionals. With two of Boss Li’s ‘gorillas’, we’ll have five men. With that, that Luo Feng shouldn’t be a problem”

“Fatty, I heard that Luo Feng could beat four elite members all by himself. He’s quite a tough one” A brawny man with tattoos in the shape of a black dog said quietly.

“Black dog, fatty, other than us, Brother Zhou is sending out cobra. Even if we don’t succeed, cobra definitely will!” A one-eyed middle aged man said quietly.

“Cobra?”

Fatty and the brawny Black Dog were all shocked.

“Yea. In pure coincidence, cobra is also locked up here” The one-eyed man nodded.

“With cobra, there’s no way we can fail” Fatty got excited, “However, what does cobra look like? We’ve never even seen him before”

“We’ll move together. After lunch I’ll negotiate with Boss Li” The one-eyed man said quietly, “Without error, we’ll move together and take action at dinner time! Remember, bring your weapons” However, the weapons this prisoner was talking about were just small blades formed from sharpening a tooth brush…..

Even though there were some strict checks in this jail, it can’t compare at all to a large scale prison.

However, even in a large scale prison, crafty men are almost always able to smuggle guns and ammunition in. No matter how secure the place is, as long as people run it, there’ll be loopholes! Of course, the people in this jail were just some small fry. They were armed with mere blades and glass pieces.

������������

Evening.

“Brother Luo”

“Brother Luo”

As he walked out of his cell, every prisoner he met obediently greeted Luo Feng. Luo Feng’s story of his battle between four elite members has spread around last night. Virtually everybody in the jail knew of this young man’s strength.

In the cafeteria. It’s called a cafeteria, but it’s just a sealed lobby.

Long, stabilized, silver tables, around a couple dozen of them.

“Everything in this jail is pretty good, except the food” Since Luo Feng succeeded in his genetic energy training last night, he has been in a good mood for the entire day. He walked to the counter and received a plastic lunch box from the guards, but only some food like mud was inside it.

As he lowered his head and looked inside, there was only some food like gray mud. When he smelled it, there was the scent of potatoes.

“So this is the legendary raw meal” Luo Feng shaked his head.

It is quite famous. But though it’s called raw meal, it’s actually the undisputed absolute worst food of society. If you eat this raw meal, you only need five cents a day. Just knowing that should tell you enough about the quality of the things inside it.

A silver lobby, a silver table, and a silver lunch box.

A large amount of uniform wearing people came one by one and received their lunch boxes.

Luo Feng sat on the side of the table and lowered his head as he started to eat this raw meal. At this time, a skinny, glasses wearing teenager started cursing, “Even pigs and dogs eat better food than this!” as he ate two bites of the contents of the lunch box next to Luo Feng.

“Hurry, you lost, give me two smokes”

“Whatta ya sayin'”

In the large silver lobby, over a hundred prisoners were talking to each other. It was very messy and chaotic. Two guards stood outside the railing, both holding an assault rifle. They lazily glanced inside and then started laughing and talking with each other. The security camera at the top continuously recorded all of the events of the silver lobby.

[PENG] A one-eyed brute sat at a table three meters to the right of Luo Feng’s. He glanced at Luo Feng and laughed, “You’re Luo Feng?”

Luo Feng looked at the one-eyed brute in the eye: “You are?”

“I’m Long” The one-eyed brute grinned as he laughed.

“One-eyed dragon” A low voice said. A short fat man sat in front of the one-eyed brute. At this time, two brutes sat next to him like steel towers. The two brutes coldly looked into the one-eyed brute. Then, the short fat man laughed coldly, “When we went outside to relax yesterday, your men hit my brother right? Tell us, how are we going to resolve this issue?”

“Fuck off” The one-eyed brute rolled his eye and lectured, “Fatty Li, you better get away from me this instant. If you mess with me, don’t blame me for not holding back”

The short fat man stared coldly and laughed: “One-eyed dragon, it seems like you don’t wanna talk?”

Luo Feng ate two more bites on the sidelines and glanced. He couldn’t help but to be interested. In his point of view….. it was clearly two major powers in the jail about to fight.

“Talk shit. If you still wanna talk, fuck off” The one-eyed dragon’s only eye rolled as he lectured.

“Screw it, attack!”

The short fat man’s face was hideous as he shouted.

Instantly, the two steel tower-like brutes next to him started moving. One of them lifted the long, silver table and slammed it against the one-eyed brute, while the other brute launched a kick like lightning.

“Dare hit our boss!”

“Brothers, let’s go!”

The entire lobby instantly became chaotic.

[PENG!] One of the prisoners lifted the bench and ferociously slammed it on the security camera in the corner. Every time there’s a large scale gang fight in the jail, the first thing you do is break the camera. WIthout concrete evidence, the police naturally can just randomly select prisoners to blame.

In the silver lobby.

“AH!” The one-eyed dragon threw out his right arm and blocked the brute’s kick. However, it was a really powerful kick, so the one-eyed dragon stepped a few steps back, all the way to Luo Feng’s side.

The two steel tower-like brutes quickly pursued.

The men under the one-eyed dragon also rushed towards this direction. Suddenly, Luo Feng was at the center of the gang fight.

“Can’t believe I got messed up in this” Luo Feng could only stand up. He was too lazy to get involved in this. It was at this time that the fatty under the one-eyed dragon’s command rushed towards Luo Feng. He suddenly revealed a blade sharpened from a screw and pointed it at Luo Feng’s waist.

Before that, the one-eyed dragon revealed a small blade in his hand and was getting ready to thrust it at Luo Feng.

“Hm?” Luo Feng suddenly sensed danger. At the same time, he could feel a slight pain in his waist, as if something sharp has pierced his body. However, as Luo Feng tensed his muscles, he leapt up like a leopard and jumped past the table in front. But at this time…..

[HE] [HE]

The two steel tower-like brutes launched their legs like battle axes towards Luo Feng.

“You’re asking for death!” Luo Feng, who understood what was going on in an instant, howled in a loud voice and slammed his two fists against the two legs. The two steel-like tower brutes nicknamed ‘gorillas’ laughed coldly in their hearts. The explosive energy of the legs are way more powerful than the arm’s. Would they even fear Luo Feng?

[PENG] [PENG]

A low striking sound, followed by the sounds of bones breaking. The two ferocious steel tower-like brutes howled in pain. The two of them flew away from Luo Feng’s fists and slammed against a far away table. On the bench and floor, there were bloodstains that could shock you.

“Ahhhh” The two brutes held their legs in pain as they rolled around on the ground.

“What!” The one-eyed dragon along with fatty and black dog who were beside him were all shocked.

At this time.–

[WENG WENG] An ear piercing alarm rang. All the guardsmen in the jail rapidly rushed out of their resting areas to group up as they headed towards the cafeteria.

Luo Feng touched his waist and saw that the blood has stained his uniform. The legends were right, fighters that are capable of genetic energy trainings have fist strengths of three to four thousand kg. A regular, small bullet are incapable of piercing through their muscles. The fatty’s knife only went through Luo Feng’s skin and was stopped by his muscles.

“So you guys were putting on a play”

Luo Feng glanced at the one-eyed dragon and the short fat man, his eyes filled with ferocity, which caused the both of them to go pale from shock.

“Everyone at him, he’s injured!” The one-eyed dragon shouted in rage.

“Everyone together!” The short fat man also howled loudly. As they shouted, they lifted benches to slam Luo Feng with. Following their bosses actions, the other men naturally started to rush together with their own benches.

Luo Feng’s movements were like a phantom’s, his two legs were like cannon shots, kicking every prisoner into the air. For the regular prisoners, Luo Feng wasn’t too cruel, since they were just following orders. However, Luo Feng would not show any mercy to the two leaders and the fatty who stabbed him.

[PU!] Luo Feng’s chop broke the bench in half and his arm slammed on the one-eyed dragon’s, causing him to fly up in the air. His arm made a counter clockwise 90 degree turn.

People were all being launched into the air, benches and tables were being twisted and shattered one by one.

The difference!

This is the difference between a fighter who has trained in the genetic energy techniques and regular aggressive convicts.

As Luo Feng scanned the group of prisoners, the skinny glasses wearing teenager who was silently watching suddenly waved his hand.

“Lay off!”

As a cold light passed through the sky, he was already in front of Luo Feng.