A Bowl of Jjajang, The Son-in-Law of Jegalse - Chapter 532
Only Noblemtl
Cup of tea
The riverbank was covered with waves of white cloth.
That’s because the stall tents were made white to make them look clean.
Since there was no waterproof covering here, pillars were erected on all four sides, a ceiling was built with wooden planks, and then a white cloth was covered over it.
Because we have to do business even if it rains.
The ends of the fabric were also treated with wavy lace, giving it a slightly Arabian feel rather than a Central Plains feel.
So that this space itself can become a sight to see.
And there were red lanterns of various shapes embroidered between the tents.
It’s still daytime so they aren’t turned on, but at night, those red lights will dye the white cloth and light up this area, turning it into a red street that the people of Jungwon will dazzle.
In that space.
In the hundreds of tents erected along the river, chefs were looking at the judges’ table with tense faces, and thousands of people surrounding them were watching them with faces full of anticipation.
The first culinary competition held in the Central Plains.
This is something that is bound to be very tense and anticipated.
“I wonder what kind of food will be served.”
“That’s true.”
“I heard that four of the Eight Kings came as judges?”
“Is that all? I heard that the Prime Minister has come down from the court as well.”
“Even the Honorable Minister!?”
As Cheong-i walked out into the middle of the tents lined up amidst the crowd of people, the people’s voices died down as if water had been sprinkled on them.
Cheong-i looked around the group and spoke in a small but clear voice that everyone could hear.
“We will now begin the culinary examination of Ryu Ga Banjeom, which will be presided over by His Excellency Ryu Cheong-un, and will be examined by four of the Eight Kings, as well as by the government officials!”
Cheong-yi’s soft voice, as if it were piercing into my head, seemed to have been imbued with the secrets of martial arts.
As Cheong-i’s voice, filled with her inner strength, spread out to the river, the cheers of the people filled the surrounding area.
“““Wow!”””
And then, cutting through those voices, Cheong-yi’s voice flowed out again.
“The dishes will be prepared by ten people in one group. The cooking time will be around one meal time.
You can make a dish and bring it to the chef in one meal. In the past, the taste of the food was important, but how you made the dish was also very important.
So, we need to think about what our family and I will make and put our heart into it.
Okay, then let’s start cooking from group A!”
Gapjo’s cooking began with Cheong-i’s voice announcing the start of cooking.
Cooking time is just thirty minutes, which is about one meal.
The chefs’ hands began to move busily.
People who quickly place a pot or wok on a hot plate and start heating it up.
-Whew hoosh.
The sound of stomping feet continued, and fireworks rose brilliantly here and there in the tent.
A question that comes to mind when chefs start to move busily to prepare a dish.
“But isn’t it too rushed to cook it in just one meal?”
When I turned my head, the master of the sword was looking at me with a worried expression.
It seems like you feel like the cooking time is too short.
If you were a Korean in your past life, you would think this is too long, but in the Central Plains, waiting for an hour or two is common, so thirty minutes seemed like too little time.
“No, Master. You have enough time, so don’t worry too much.”
“Enough?”
The King of the Kitchen looked incomprehensible, but there was a reason why the cooking time was so short.
What we need is not just a meal, but a simple snack to whet our appetite before the meal.
Moreover, since it was a street food dish, it had to be made quickly and served to customers.
That’s why the cooking time is so short.
“No. Since it’s food from a street stall, it’s right to serve it to customers quickly, so there’s plenty of time. You can’t make people wait an hour at a street stall, right?”
Then, the king of swordsmen nodded his head.
He stood up from his seat with a smile and spoke to the four judges: King Kwon, King Spear, King Geom, King Yak, Brother Po, Elder Sosik, Ga-ryeon, and Yeong-yeong.
“Okay, then shall we proceed with the examination?”
“Okay.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
“Let’s go, teacher.”
Me and eight judges following me.
As we arrived at the first tent with eight judges, the first thing we saw was a masked man kneading dough.
-Thud! Thud!
The man’s hands moved quickly, showing how skilled he was.
The master of the sword saw this from the side and nodded his head and said.
“It’s a hand movement that I’ve become quite familiar with. It’s a movement that I’ve probably repeated thousands and tens of thousands of times. Nice.”
The other four kings nodded at those words.
If you think about it, the cooking process is also a physical activity.
Since you don’t know anything technical about cooking, it seems like you four will focus on mastering the movements.
I was worried that the four of you might be saying something strange, but is this the Manryuguijong (returning to Buddhism)?
‘Is this a good method?’
While the four of them were carefully observing the chef’s movements, Yeong-yeong whispered quietly next to them.
“The dough seems to have fermented well. It smells similar to the dough of our Ryu Ga Banjeom.”
“okay?”
If Young-Young commented that the dough was similar to ours, it means that the dough was well-fermented.
A good feeling from the first moment you step into the house.
Even though we were staring intently at him as he prepared the food, the man continued cooking with very familiar hand movements.
He’s not a beginner, he’s probably someone who used to do business with the author.
-Thud!
The man struck the dough hard once, then rolled it out into long balls like garaetteok and began to divide them into small pieces.
-Tok. Tok. Tok. Tok.
Quick hand movements.
I reached out and held the dough the man had cut in my hand.
‘It’s scheduled.’
What my chef’s hands holding the dough tell me is that the dough has an error margin of less than 1g.
I don’t know what they’ll make, but it looks very promising.
With this level of skill, this food would be delicious even without looking at it.
-Sigh.
The next movement is rolling the dough.
The man who finished the dough rumor started to roll the dough into a long strip.
A long, oval-shaped dough that is quickly completed as the man’s hands move up and down the dough.
The man who sprinkled flour to prevent the dough from sticking went straight to the next task.
-Knock knock knock knock.
I quickly chopped the pork into two pieces, then sliced ??the ginger and green onions.
Then he put five spices in a mortar and pestle: cinnamon, fennel, star anise, pepper, and cloves and began to grind them.
-Thump. Thump. Thump.
The fragrant and strong scent of the five spices that wafts out every time the five spices are ground.
I asked the chef who was grinding spices.
“You can grind it in advance, so why grind it yourself?”
Since there are no separate restrictions on preparing ingredients in advance when making a dish, I asked why they grind it themselves when they could have prepared it in advance like dough.
Then the man spoke without stopping his moving hands.
“If you grind incense in advance, the scent will disappear. Well, it doesn’t really disappear, but you could say the scent dies? Well, that’s how I feel about it, so I do that.”
A very, very satisfactory answer.
Yes, if you grind it in advance, the scent of the incense will probably disappear, so it is best to grind it on the spot.
The man who had ground all the spices began to mix the minced pork with the minced green onions and ginger.
-Smack. Smack.
The fragrant aroma of the five spices and minced pork mixed with green onions and garlic rises.
The man seasoned it with a little soy sauce and salt, and finally added what appeared to be oil.
“What is that?”
“It’s perfume.”
The last ingredient the man added was sesame oil.
The man who had added sesame oil took out the dough that had been left to rest for a while and put the ingredients aside to be mixed again.
Then, spread the mixed ingredients thinly on the long dough.
-Whack. Whack.
A man who spreads filling on each piece of dough and rolls the filled dough into balls.
The rolled dough was quickly completed and when the dough was completely dry, the man stood the dough upright and pressed it down.
“Ah, this was a cup of tea.”
“That’s right, Ryu Daein. You know what I mean?”
“Overdose?”
“What kind of dish is gwahoe? Sir.”
The dish that men make is called gwahoe (??) or gwagoi (??).
Yeong-yeong and Ga-ryeon-i are probably seeing this dish for the first time, but gwa-hoe (??) is a very traditional dish.
This dish developed in Gansu Province and can be considered a type of Central Plains hotteok.
It’s called Guo Kui in the Chinese pronunciation, and I nodded my head because it was a dish that was often sold on the streets in my past life.
Because Guo Kuai Ramen is the best street food.
‘If it’s Guo Kui Ramen, it’s good as street food.’
First of all, it is convenient because you can hold it in your hand and eat it.
Because it is really delicious, unlike the regular hotteok we think of.
I’ve also bought it many times instead of eating it in the morning.
And it’s not even just a hotteok, it’s a pastry hotteok?
Didn’t the man spread seasoning on the dough and roll it up? Each and every one of those rolls becomes a layer that makes up the pastry.
Once completed, the thinly spread meat filling is sandwiched between the pastry layers, creating a rich and fragrant taste.
In his previous life, the fillings were very varied, but the man made the fillings using cheap pork, so he scored high in that regard.
It’s cheap and doesn’t contain sugar, so it’ll be great for other dishes.
-Whew hoosh.
The sound of a whistle continues, and a man lifts a wok.
The man began to pour rapeseed oil into the wok.
-Kkkkkkkkkkkkkk.
Pour rapeseed oil into the wok, just enough to cover half of the batter.
As the rapeseed oil began to heat up, the man sprinkled sesame seeds on the dough he had pressed out and quickly threw it into the wok.
-Whoa!
Then comes the delicious sound that makes your salivary glands explode.
The sound of hotteok being fried rings in my ears, and the first scent to waft from the grilled fruit is the fragrant scent of sesame seeds being fried.
There is the savory aroma of pork and green onions, along with the delicious smell of fried flour.
Then, the scent of ginger and five spices mixed together and hit my nose without mercy.
A feast of fragrances made up of sophistication and fragrant sweetness.
‘Very good.’
Judging from the process so far, this is a street food dish with a high level of perfection that you don’t even need to look at the other dishes.
The man quickly turned the dough over as it was fried in vegetable oil and one side turned golden brown.
-Whoa!
Then, once again, a delicious smell wafted out, delighting my ears.
“Gaga, that dish looks really delicious.”
“That’s right, sir.”
“Hehe, I have high expectations for such a delicious dish from the first course.”
“Hmm… It’s a shame it’s not a skewer, but it looks like a dish worth trying.”
The other judges also showed their anticipation and expressed their desire to eat it.
It was when the fruit was ripening so deliciously.
-Crunch.
A man adding oil to a frying pan.
Adding oil is done because the batter absorbs the oil, and when all the sashimi were fried, the man pushed the wok with the sashimi on it aside and started putting the sashimi one by one on the inner rim of the burner where the wok had been placed.
“What is that for?”
“Isn’t it fully ripe?”
Garyeon and Yeongyeong didn’t seem to understand why they were putting fully cooked food back next to the stove, but there was a reason for that.
The ripened puff pastry absorbs a lot of oil into the dough, and when you put it on the inner edge of the fire and heat it gently, the oil that the puff pastry has absorbed flows out, and the outer shell made of pastry releases all the oil and becomes very crispy.
Just like how fat is drained from oven-baked duck, it is made by placing it on the edge of the burner that acts as an oven to drain the fat and make it crispy.
After all the processes were completed, the man wrapped the fruits he had made in paper and handed them out to the judges one by one.
“Here, try it.”
It was a very confident voice, but as expected, it was not our Yeong-yeong who could endure this kind of food.
-Crunch.
Young-young, who had just taken her first bite, opened her eyes wide at the sound coming from the fruit shop.
The refreshing sound of the shell breaking is amazing.
The other judges also put their mouths to their lips when they heard the words coming from Young-young’s mouth.
-Crunch.
-Crispy.
“Oh, it’s delicious.”
“It’s delicious. It’s delicious. I didn’t know that the first dish could be this well-made.”
“It’s a really delicious dish, just as I expected.”
The sword master, Su Dongpo, and King Chang tasted the food and smiled.
-Crunch.
When I took a bite of the snack, the first taste that hit me was the nutty flavor of the fried sesame seeds, followed by the nutty flavor of the crispy fried wheat flour crust.
But when I looked at Garyeon next to me, I saw her frowning slightly while holding the fruit she had taken a bite of.
He asked the man with a smile on his face at that sight.
“Everything was a perfect success. You just made one mistake, do you know that?”
“yes!?”
The man’s voice was tinged with confusion at my question, and the other examiners looked at me with expressions of incomprehension.