A Bowl of Jjajang, The Son-in-Law of Jegalse - Chapter 533
Only Noblemtl
Zhao Xing Roasted Rat
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“Poem, is that a mistake?”
“That’s right. Rather than calling it a mistake, I guess you could say it’s a shame?”
“Well, I don’t know. I’ve been doing business here for over ten years…”
As expected, the man is a seasoned street vendor.
It wasn’t just the man who was bewildered, and he could hear people from behind him expressing incomprehension.
“It tastes good, but are you saying there was a mistake?”
“Gaga, is it a mistake? It’s strange, but it’s delicious.”
A slight mistake that even the taste expert Young-Young and the other judges don’t know about.
I asked Garyeon because she seemed to have noticed.
“Do you know, Garyeon?”
“Yes, sir. The taste and aroma are too one-sided. I felt like it was a bit off from what you said about bringing out the flavor of each ingredient.”
“Yeah, you definitely know that.”
“The scent is focused on one side? Ah!”
Yeong-yeong’s reaction, as if he noticed Garyeon’s words.
In response to the man’s statement that he didn’t quite understand what he was talking about, the man decided to demonstrate using the materials he had prepared.
“I’ll show you once, so watch carefully. For chefs like us, it’s better to see with our own eyes than to hear it a hundred times.”
“Oh, I understand.”
For a chef, it is best to show them how to make it and taste it, rather than just talking about it.
The man decided to make the filling by mixing the remaining minced pork and spices that he had prepared.
First, the man mixed pork with five spices—cinnamon, fennel, star anise, pepper, and cloves—just as he had done before, and added chopped green onions and ginger.
And finally, I tasted the rapeseed oil that was added.
-side.
A transparent taste that leaves you feeling nothing.
“Hmm… Is this boiled oil?”
“That’s right, sir. If you don’t boil it, you can fry it, so you can’t use it.”
As the man said, rapeseed oil is an oil that cannot be used in cooking unless it is boiled at least once.
This is due to the characteristics of rapeseed oil, which usually has a characteristic bitter taste if not boiled.
The reason why ordinary people do not taste bitterness in rapeseed oil when cooking is because the canola oil we use is completely different from rapeseed oil.
Rapeseed oil contains a fatty acid called erucic acid, which accounts for 20 to 60 percent of the total fatty acids. The characteristic of erucic acid is its bitter taste.
Lorenzo’s oil, which is said to be used for rare diseases, also contains this ingredient, but since this erucic acid has a bitter taste and is toxic, caution must be taken when taking it.
Because long-term use can damage the heart muscle.
That is why canola is a variety of rapeseed that has been bred to have an erucic acid content of less than 5 percent, and the rapeseed oil that Yuri eats is the oil of this canola.
However, during this Song Dynasty, there was no variety called canola, so everyone used rapeseed oil.
No, while the previous world was wary of erucic acid mixed in rapeseed oil, even in the Central Plains of my previous life, regular rapeseed oil was just used.
People in the Central Plains prefer the unique bitter taste of rapeseed oil, so they just use plain rapeseed oil.
However, it is not used as is in salads or as is. When using it in fried or stir-fried dishes, it must go through a processing process.
It goes through a roasting process to remove the bitter taste.
Rapeseed oil is usually treated by heating it to a suitable temperature of around 150 degrees for a long time to remove erucic acid, which causes a bitter taste, as the proportion of erucic acid decreases.
I put the rapeseed oil that I had tasted into the dough and mixed all the ingredients together.
-Whack.
“hmm···?”
The questioning voice of a man who saw the ingredients being mixed.
Pretending not to know his reaction, the man spread the filling he had just made on the flour he had set aside, rolled it up, and pressed it down.
Next, I put oil in the wok and when I thought the oil temperature was just right, I put in the dough I had prepared.
-Whoa.
As expected, a delicious aroma rises as the dough is mixed with oil.
After turning the sashimi over and cooking it evenly, I put the grilled sashimi on the edge of the burner like a man and drained all the oil.
Roll the fruit gently like that to evenly drain the oil, and when you think all the dripping oil has disappeared.
When a ripe, juicy piece of squid was offered to a man, he quickly lifted his mask and put the cut squid in his mouth, perhaps out of curiosity.
“Here, let me try it.”
“Then excuse me.”
-Crunch.
A delicious sound was heard from the man’s mouth, and soon after, the man who had been chewing the fruit for a long time shouted as if he had realized something.
“This, this is… I see!”
And the judges were so curious about the man’s reaction that they each put the baked fruit in their mouths before I even gave it to them.
-Crispy. Crunchy.
The sound of the shells of the past breaking can be heard here and there.
Except for Garyeon, everyone else was still new to the dish, but they all responded that they felt a distinct change, perhaps because it had not been long since they had eaten the previous one.
“Oh, it doesn’t seem like anything has changed, but how come it tastes so rich?”
“It definitely had a strong scent and flavor, but this one has a lot of different scents and flavors.”
“Gaga, this one is even more delicious. Just as the elders said, the flavor has really become richer.”
I asked the man who was standing there dumbfounded after tasting the fruit.
“Okay, do you see the difference?”
Then the man suddenly came to his senses and answered in a cautious voice.
“It’s because of the oil.”
“Yes, to be exact, it’s because of the perfume.”
Yes, that’s right.
Almost everything about the man’s cooking and preparation was excellent, except for one mistake he made: he added sesame oil to the beef.
You can already taste the sesame flavor because it is fried with sesame seeds on the outside, and since sesame oil is added generously to the filling, the taste of the fruit cannot help but be sesame oil.
The flavor of sesame oil is so strong that it overpowers the flavors of other spices.
“I never thought that the thing I put in to make it taste better would actually be poisonous···.”
When we cook meat, adding spices to remove the gamey smell is a very scientific act.
The scent of spices is based on volatile oils, which are essential oils. As a result, the scent of old spices disappears. That is why the essential oils, which are the scent of spices, are dissolved in the fat of the meat and used to remove the unpleasant odor.
Therefore, if the stew is made properly, the oil from the pork and the additional rapeseed oil should melt into the fragrance from the five spices, green onions, and ginger, eliminating the unpleasant smell of the pork and allowing you to taste the diverse flavors of the seven spices.
However, the man made a mistake by mixing other spices into sesame oil, which has a strong aroma, so they all mixed together and only the sesame oil flavor was tasted.
“It’s a shame, if it weren’t for that mistake, he would have been worthy of being called a captain.”
“Ugh···.”
The man let out a sigh of regret at my words, but soon pulled himself together and turned to me to throw the winning ticket.
“Thank you for the great teaching, Ryu Daein.”
A very polite man.
Then, people’s voices were heard from all directions.
“I thought that since it was a culinary competition, you would simply evaluate a person’s skills by tasting them, but I didn’t expect you to even teach them. As expected from Master Ryu.”
“That’s true. This is more than just a simple cooking lesson.”
“You can tell what’s lacking in a dish just by tasting it once and even tell me how to improve it. You really have the skills to pass the culinary exam.”
‘Am I a bit crazy?’
I shrugged my shoulders at the praise from the people and whispered to Biyeon, who was following me with a piece of paper on which to write the results of the evaluation.
[Write it down as you imagine.]
[Understood, Cheongun.]
A man’s evaluation is above all else. In a situation where his cooking is pointed out, he cleanly admits his mistakes and expresses gratitude.
Ga-Ryeon, Yeong-Yeong, and the other judges who were listening to me whispered to Bi-Yeon and told her the results of their evaluation.
[I also imagined it.]
[I can imagine that too.]
[Should I go to the funeral?]
[I’ll just imagine. I like the personality.]
So past the first table, to the second table.
A large man with his face hidden by a mask bowed and greeted me.
“Welcome!”
The mask that was prepared for him doesn’t cover his entire face, making him look small.
Even though his face was covered by a patch of stubble on his chin, he looked more like a bandit than a chef.
“Okay, let’s get started.”
“All right!”
The man who greeted me quickly began taking out the ingredients he had prepared from a tray covered with a cloth as soon as I greeted him.
What comes out of the pan are some spices and vegetables.
And the last ingredient is meat.
‘meat?’
“What, what is this!?”
I couldn’t help but be perplexed by the last ingredient the man took out.
What the man took out of the basket was a trimmed animal, and it was no ordinary animal.
“Go, go go?”
“teacher···.”
As expected, Garyeon and Yeongyeong looked at me with expressions asking if this was right.
That animal is not eaten in the Sichuan region, the hometown of Yeongyeong or Ga-ryeon… no, not anywhere in Central China. It is eaten only by ethnic minorities in Guangdong or Guizhou, where Gwangju is located.
As we looked puzzled by the beast that appeared out of nowhere, we heard the voice of the Medicine King from the side.
Perhaps because it is a local dish, you have probably tried it at least once.
“I guess you’re thinking of making Zhaoxing Roasted Rat.”
The man nodded his head in delight at the medicine king’s question.
“Yes, sir. I would like to offer you a taste of our famous Joheung goseo. If there is a dish that can be sold at a street stall, there is nothing better than this Joheung goseo.”
As expected, the man seemed to be from Joheung.
What kind of food is Zhao Xing Roasted Rat?
It means roasted rat from the Joheung region.
So what he meant was that he was going to make a roasted rat dish for my cooking contest.
‘I should have done some research beforehand on what kind of dish to make… Since there were a lot of preliminary contestants, I didn’t prepare anything in advance, and then I didn’t expect a villain like this to appear…’
Looking to the side, he saw the beautiful mother of King Chang, who was as pretty as Yeong-yeong, frowning.
The man was pulling out bamboo he had cut to use as skewers, and he seemed annoyed because it seemed like these were the skewers he had said he would inspect so personally.
[Gaga, are you just going to let me cook?]
Yeong-yeong’s question seemed like it was a suggestion to kick him out without even looking, but I hesitated for a moment.
Although this is not the case in Korea, the rat-eating culture in Southeast Asian countries has a long history and tradition, and it has great significance in that it catches rats that steal grain from the fields.
It is a source of protein that farmers who have difficulty accessing protein can easily eat, so it is widely used in their diet.
It is a dish that only the rich and the modern-day sensibilities of me find disgusting, but surprisingly, it is a dish that the common people in the southern part of the Central Plains eat without knowing it.
In particular, Vietnam is so full of restaurants specializing in rat meat dishes that you can find them lining the streets.
So there was a problem with not being able to cook itself.
Even in Gwangju, below us, rat meat is eaten quite a lot, so it would be unfair to kick out people for cooking rat meat dishes.
Moreover, since it is a rat meat dish, it will be cheap, and since it is a dish sold at a street stall, it will attract people for various reasons.
This dish is not common in Bokju, so it was sure to attract people’s attention.
Personally, I felt disgusted by it, but with the soul of a chef and the mind of a businessman, I decided to give it a try.
As long as there is a cooking process and taste, it is a type of ‘cooking’.
[I can’t stop you from cooking, can I? Let’s just watch you cook for now.]
[I, I don’t think I can see it. Look at those teeth! The tail is even more disgusting!]
Yeong-yeong kept complaining, but what if it was really delicious?
I have to give you a seat.
Because of my aversion to rats themselves, Nana Young-young’s eyes looked strange, but I decided to watch the dish first in case it tasted different.
‘I’m going to eat all the rats since I was born…’