Chapter 23
Chapter 23: Three dishes and one meal (2)
Posted on May 29, 2016 by bsubak — 13 Comments ↓
The first thing Jo Minjoon grabbed was the cooking oil. He poured a lot of it in the pot and turned on the fire. Bringing up the heat of the oil wasn’t something that was done in an instant. You had to prepare it beforehand, and that was also true for water. Jo Minjoon put another pot next to the oiled one, put some kelp and turned on the fire.
There were four gas burners on the countertop, and Jo Minjoon was responsible for two of these. The other two were for Chloe. And for Marco didn’t need a burner.
While heating the water and oil, Jo Minjoon prepared the soft tofu quickly. He wouldn’t be late if he prepared the soy sauce and the vegetables later. If it was an ingredient that needed to be fermented, then that was another story. But for soft tofu, it was more important for it to have a neat flavor.
The size of the tofu wasn’t big. In the first place, it wasn’t good to have a big amount in an appetizer menu. Precisely speaking it wasn’t good for the overall course of the menu.
People have a tendency to see the restaurant’s dish amount and are reluctant to spend money on it. Jo Minjoon could understand them. Because, a restaurant’s price was as much as five times the normal price. But the amount of food in the plate was the size of a fist, no, the size of a thumb, so it wasn’t rare for people to complain about it. ‘Aren’t they saving too much ingredients?’ He thought.
But the restaurants didn’t put a small amount on the plate to save ingredient fees. Regret. That regret was the work of the flavor. And if you put a big amount of food, or ate many times the same food, feeling the same impression as the first time was difficult. Dishes with small amounts of food looked to impress the customers.
‘I’ll make it a bite size.’
The knife sliced the tofu softly. The flavor and the regret came only with the size of a bite. There were even restaurants that served the steak already chopped in the size of a bite.
He put the sliced tofus on top of the cotton cloth. For the soon to fry tofu to still have moisture was a great mistake. And when you buried the tofu in the dough, it had a high possibility to break. It was a must to remove the moisture of the tofu.
At the same time, it was a quite a pain of a job. If you put it over a dry cloth, the surface of the tofu would stick to it. And if you did it with a wet cloth, the moisture didn’t absorb well. He had to use a not too dry nor a wet cloth like he was doing right now. That was the best method for the soft tofu not to turn bad and remove the moisture.
Jo Minjoon grabbed the kitchen towel and covered the soft tofu with it. And after taking a breath, looked at his surroundings. Marco was making dough for the biscuit for quite a while, and Chloe was putting the sliced scallops in the steamer.
So at the same time, Jo Minjoon couldn’t help but be surprised. If she had lost to Kaya it was understandable. But when there were at least 10 participants left and the winner was almost confirmed, Chloe wasn’t on that place in Jo Minjoon’s memories.
‘What could have happened……?’
It was a problem he didn’t have to think right now. Even if he thought about it he wouldn’t get any answers. So Jo Minjoon turned his head to look at the soft tofu. For now, the oil should have drained. The given time was almost over. He had to start moving the soft tofu to the sauce.
Soft fried tofu. Precisely speaking, while finishing the agedashi tofu, Jo Minjoon felt something he didn’t know. At first, he thought it was the scallop he had eaten, but it wasn’t. And that feeling soon appeared before him.
[Agedashi Tofu]
Freshness: 90%
Origins: (Too many ingredients to know)
Quality: High(Average ingredients)
Cooking Score: 7/10
7 points. Usually, he thought that it was good enough. He thought that it was a relatively safe score. However looking at that score, he didn’t feel as satisfied as usual. He remembered Kaya’s eel. And also remembered the scallop he had just eaten.
Jo Minjoon lifted a spoon and put a soft fried tofu in his mouth. It was good. The feeling of it touching the tongue, the oily flavor of the fried coat, and beyond that was the bland flavor of the tofu. However, he wasn’t satisfied.
Was the flavor lacking? Or could it be because of the score before him.
If he didn’t see the score, would he be satisfied?
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