I Got the Almighty Tongue - Chapter 117



Only Noblemtl

Episode 117 Menu Evaluation (3)

“Is this really a dish made for the menu?”

Dominic shakes his head at my question.

“That’s not true. I just wanted to know where I am right now. Chef, please taste it and tell me.”

What Dominic brought was Aglio e Olio.

Aglio e olio is the simplest pasta dish. It is a basic home-cooked dish made with olive oil, garlic, and salt as a base, with optional ingredients such as parsley, peperoncino, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. It is not sold in fine dining establishments or even regular restaurants. It is a simple late-night snack that is made at home when you are hungry, as it lacks flavor and volume as a meal.

“I was deeply impressed when I tasted the chef’s cacao e pepe. It was then that I realized that expensive ingredients or complicated recipes are not necessarily necessary to make a delicious dish.

Looking back, I think I was always obsessed with making decent dishes. I think I thought that making dishes that were a little more flashy and impactful was the way to prove myself.”

Dominic speaks with a serious expression as if he is making a confession.

“okay.”

I wanted to listen to him a little more.

“More than anything, I wasn’t confident in myself. One day, I was cooking and I asked myself, ‘Is this really the best I can do?’ and it wasn’t.

So I made the most delicious aglio e olio I could at the moment. It may not be on the menu, but I thought it would at least give you an idea of ​​where I am.”

Dominic pauses, takes a breath, then looks at me with an earnest expression and asks,

“Chef, can I become a great chef?”

I picked up the plate Dominic had brought out and held it in front of me to smell it.

The aroma of garlic is strong. To get this aroma, you have to fry it for a long time, so the garlic tends to burn. This is because garlic cooks faster than noodles.

But Dominic’s pasta retained its flavor and the garlic didn’t burn. The surface of the pasta was shiny. The water and oil were perfectly emulsified, creating a viscosity in the sauce. I rolled the pasta with a fork and put it in my mouth.

The first taste is the texture of soft oil. The taste of fresh olive oil coating the noodles and the spiciness of garlic spread fragrantly in the mouth. Then, the peperoncino asserts its presence without being flashy. The amount of parsley was also appropriate. The dish, which could have been monotonous, was given a point by using two simple side dishes, and it was a great success.

“Of all the aglio e olio I’ve had recently, this is the most impressive.

It seems like a lot of thought went into not burning the garlic. If you slice the garlic, it’s hard to keep the flavor. You might have to put in too much, which can be burdensome.

The choice to marinate the minced garlic in oil beforehand was great. It quickly activated the garlic flavor and then synergized it with the peperoncino. The degree of cooking of the noodles was also great. The undercooked noodles were cooked until they were nice and soft, emulsifying them with the sauce with the mantecare (a cooking technique where you turn off the heat and stir the ingredients while cooking). It’s really not easy to make pasta like this without cheese or other ingredients. Well done, Dominic.”

When a chef questions his own cooking, he becomes lost. Everything he cooks feels like a mess. So he tries to compensate by adding excessive ingredients or fancy decorations.

This is a process that every wandering chef must go through. Dominic quickly escaped this trap, and he is asking me the question of where he is in a straightforward manner.

“Thank you, Chef.”

Dominic smiles with a rare satisfied smile on his face. He could be a better chef. Dominic looks relieved and picks up his plate and leaves. Then Sam comes out with his dish.

Sam also prepared pasta.

“It’s good to have ambition. If you’re an Italian chef, you should have at least one pasta dish named after yourself.”

It looks like a typical pasta dish with duck meat and tomatoes, but my intuition as a chef tells me that there is more to it than that.

I looked closely at the pasta Sam had plated. The duck meat was deliciously roasted. The tomato paste seemed to have been used, and it had a unique flavor. It was a bit rustic, but it looked delicious. I picked up the duck meat and rigatoni with my fork and tasted them at the same time.

The laurel scent is stronger than I thought. But soon, the rich roasted duck meat and the flavor of the oil cover it. And the taste of garlic and chives from the tomato sauce. Segreto has its own tomato paste recipe. However, Sam seems to have made a separate paste just for this pasta. And the moment I chewed the rigatoni, I felt an unexpected taste and flavor.

“huh?”

I tilted my head and took another bite of the noodles. The plain-looking rigatoni tasted like chives, basil, and spinach.

I took out a rigatoni, placed it on a plate, and cut it in half with a knife. It was a triple-layered dough. Chives, basil, and spinach were mixed together and sandwiched between regular dough.

“Duck is a meat with a strong flavor. It also has a lot of fat, so it’s not easy to match it with pasta. That’s why many chefs roast it to remove the fat and use only the meat.

But Sam made the broth by putting in whole duck legs, and he used all the meat and fat for flavor. He made his own tomato paste to balance the flavor and fat of the duck meat, which can be too strong. Using chives was the right choice.”

Chives, called Western chives, go well with duck meat. They are used in tomato paste to enhance the overall flavor of the sauce, and basil, spinach, and chives are used in the noodle dough to make it easy to eat. And the highlight is the mushroom scent. The mushrooms are full of flavor, but the texture is chewy. It seems that dried porcini mushrooms were soaked in broth.

“Thank you, Chef.”

“Duck is a more difficult ingredient to cook than you might think. The taste changes a lot depending on how you process the oil and flavor.

Sam made a bold choice to put the seared duck right into the sauce, and roasted it slowly in the oven so that every last drop of fat was infused into the sauce. I also liked the choice of bay leaves, leeks, carrots, garlic, and onions. There had to be a lot of vegetables and spices to counter the strong flavor of the duck. In the noodles and in the sauce. This was a really great pasta, Sam. This might be a little heavy for lunch. Let’s add it as a side for dinner.”

“Really?”

Sam looks at me with an expression of disbelief. Sam’s cooking deserves a little more respect. I found the reason why Sam doesn’t get the credit he deserves in his plating.

“But you should study plating more. If you lack aesthetic sense, it will continue to hold you back in your future career. It is important to find your own plating by appreciating many works of art and referencing other chefs’ dishes.”

Not all chefs have a great sense of aesthetics. Plating can be improved through learning. There are already a huge number of references. Therefore, it is easy and very difficult to express your own color in plating.

“Okay, Chef. Thank you.”

Sam bows his head with a grateful face. The staff, who know the hard work Sam has done, applaud. I was also surprised that the dish turned out better than expected.

I was convinced after eating Soyoung and Sam’s dishes. The chefs were strongly influenced by me. I am reluctant to make dishes that can be predicted before eating. Soyoung used gelatin and caviar sauce, and Sam hid the flavors in the noodles and sauce. I also could not know the exact taste until I tasted their food myself.

Now it’s Ella’s turn. I saw Ella quietly enter the kitchen while the tasting was in progress. What dish will she bring?

A moment later Ella came back with her own dish. It was soup in a concave dish.

‘soup?’

I didn’t know Ella had prepared soup. As she puts down the food, a strong seafood aroma wafts in. And judging by the distinctive golden color of the soup, it seems to have been made with saffron.

“Is this dish inspired by Bouillabaisse?”

Bouillabaisse can be described as a French seafood stew using saffron.

“Yes. As I was trying to realize the flavor that came to mind, it ended up being similar to bouillabaisse. Please taste it.”

Ella’s expression is playful. Is there something in this soup that I don’t know about? I scooped up the soup with a spoon and put it in my mouth. The broth was made with consommé. Beef broth with seafood is luxurious. In addition, the taste of saffron, various vegetables, and fish and shellfish surged like a tidal wave. The soup had a thick flavor. And there was something chewy in my mouth.

“rice?”

Carnaroli is the main ingredient used in making risotto. She used this incredibly expensive ingredient as the broth for risotto. However, there is too little rice for risotto. It is like..

“The soup I ate when I went to Korea was impressive. It was a way of eating rice mixed in soup that I couldn’t even imagine in the West.”

Rice is also eaten in the West. In addition to risotto, porridge (a type of porridge made by boiling rice in water or milk) is also eaten in England. However, it is difficult to find dishes using rice in a form like gukbap outside of Korea. This may have been an idea possible because the people like both rice and soup.

“So this is what you made the risotto for?”

“I think this soup is really delicious. At first, I was thinking of making risotto, but as I was cooking, I changed my mind. I wanted to make soup, too. You could say that the rice is a topping for the soup.”

It was as she said. Ella was treating the rice as if it were a topping for soup. I tasted the soup again. It was amazing. The rich beef stock and seafood meet with saffron. The texture of the rice in my mouth was also satisfying. But could I put this dish on the menu when it was neither soup nor risotto?

After cooking for a long time, I think I too have become trapped in stereotypes.

‘Nationality doesn’t matter when it comes to food. If it’s delicious, it becomes a tradition.’

Isn’t that what I always say? I nodded at Ella.

“It’s worthy of being on the menu. Let’s serve it as a single dish for lunch.”

“Thank you, Chef.”

Ella bows her head. Her cooking is free-spirited. She accepts anything that tastes good. I thought that maybe Ella is the chef who influenced me the most.

The tasting event was a success. The chefs who will soon be going to Segreto Seoul did not participate in the tasting event because they had to change their work location anyway. However, I did not miss the change in their eyes. They would also want to have their dishes on the menu. I don’t know when that will be possible.

We returned to the usual Segreto. The busy hall and kitchen, and the chefs who were busy preparing food. I was enjoying this atmosphere and having a peaceful time. Until he came.

“Chairman Seo?”

Oh my goodness. Chairman Seo flew all the way to the United States.