Chapter 31: Chapter 31: Good cooking and the final product (1)

It might have been cruel to the losers, but Grand Chef tried to give special preference to the winners. Same with the ingredients given. All the contestants aside from those who were disqualified were allowed to use an unlimited amount of cooking materials.

The pantry, which contained all of the basic materials a chef could think of, was no different from Heaven for those who loved to cook.

And it was a given that the contestants held the cooking knife at least multiple times a day. They experimented continuously, and the final products went into the mouths of the production staff at times, but most of the time, it went into their own mouths.

That was also why Chloe looked to be crying.

“What do I do? I think I gained weight.”

Chloe spoke while grabbing onto her belly. Cho Min Joon stared at her with eyes that just didn’t understand. To him, she still looked thin. Thanks to her olive skin tone, her figure looked just as fit as that of a black person.

But Cho Min Joon didn’t criticize her for it. He knew very well that a man couldn’t win against a woman when talking about weight. But Marco thought differently. He stared at Chloe blankly.

“You… gained weight?”

In response, Chloe looked over at Marco with an awkward face. Marco’s figure was so plentiful that he looked like a comfortable couch. Yet she was talking about herself right beside him. And then from beside him.

“If she says she gained weight, she probably did. Does she have to look like you to call herself fat?”

It was Kaya. She spoke in her usual cold voice. But instead of Marco, her eyes were looking at her phone. The way her eyes squirmed suggested that she was reading comments about herself. Chloe sat on the arm of the sofa and rubbed Kaya’s shoulders.

“Stop reading the comments. It’s not good for your mental health.”

“That’s okay. I grew up listening to curse words.”

Cho Min Joon looked at Kaya and sighed. She didn’t check her comments during the first episode. Even if she did, she did it with a comfortable face. But not anymore. This all started after the 2nd episode aired last night.

Grand Chef was holding the preliminaries in another region. And that was probably going to be broadcasted until the 3rd episode. What was important was the star of the 2nd episode. Just like how Kaya gained attention in the 1st episode, Anderson was the star of the 2nd.

And that was when cliques began to form amongst the viewers. Kaya Reuters from the slums and Anderson Russo, who grew up from a cooking family. They both gave off their distinct colors.

It was the start of a war. Kaya’s fans and Anderson’s fans went against each other. In the end, both contestants got hurt, but most fans didn’t care about that.

Cho Min Joon quietly stared at Kaya. She was still young but very tall. People were weak to negative comments, but Cho Min Joon believed that Kaya was going to deal with fame in a wise way. However, he didn’t like the way she kept reading the comments. Cho Min Joon spoke. It was the only thing that could get them to get up.

“Let’s have lunch.”

“… Lunch? It’s only 11:30. It’s only been 3 hours since we had breakfast.”

“You’ll get hungry when you start cooking. And Chloe, you’re still skinny. So don’t worry. Let’s go.”

Cho Min Joon glanced over at Kaya. Kaya didn’t notice him because of her phone, but Marco and Chloe got the idea. In the end, Marco sighed and got up from the sofa.

“What are we making?”

Marco, Chloe, and Cho Min Joon grew close after one particular incident. The team mission. After that, they were closer than ever. And that didn’t only apply to their team. Most of the contestants grew close to the people they worked within the team mission.

But Kaya was different. It was inevitable. After all, she cooked in a way that wasn’t for the good of the team. So other teams found her burdensome. In the end, Kaya became an outcast.

And the reason why Kaya got to join Cho Min Joon’s team had to do with Chloe more than Cho Min Joon. When Cho Min Joon had a hard time approaching Kaya due to her pride, Chloe approached Kaya with her friendly attitude. She approached, retreated, approached, and retreated.

“Chloe has a good personality.”

That was what he thought. Chloe was persistent. She was someone who couldn’t leave a person alone after getting hurt. That was probably how Cho Min Joon got on the team as well.

After multiple attempts, they finally got her to join. They all cooked together and made lunch. Cho Min Joon enjoyed how things were at the moment.

The four of them were all making different dishes in the kitchen. They were almost making a course meal. Cho Min Joon was making Aglio e Olio, Chloe was making potato soup, and Kaya was making grilled Guanzi. And as for Marco, he was making soufflé.

Aglio e Olio was a dish that was simple but difficult to make. Since olive oil replaced the role of the sauce, the texture, salt, and the scent intensity could be clearly detected. It was a dish that couldn’t be disguised with a strong tomato sauce.

Of course, it was convenient that only olive oil, garlic, peppers, and spaghetti noodles were needed for the dish. That was why most Koreans attempted Aglio e Olio the most. When people cooked an unfamiliar dish, they tended to make something with the cheapest ingredients.

Cho Min Joon also started to love cooking through pasta. To be more exact, it was through Aglio e Olio. And it was a great lesson. He was able to get a closer look at the special flavors of oil as well as the scents of garlic and pepper.

Cho Min Joon added salt and olive oil to the boiling water. He added salt to add flavor to the noodles, and the olive oil was so that the noodles wouldn’t stick together. He then took out the spaghetti noodles. It was the most popular noodles that Koreans thought of when making pasta.

And for Aglio e Olio, it was the most appropriate noodle. If he used a fettuccine noodle, it could taste too strong. There was a reason why different noodles were used for different kinds of pasta.

Cho Min Joon put the spaghetti noodles into the boiling water. When he looked at the noodles spreading out like a flower, he felt good for some reason. Cho Min Joon turned away from the boiling water and took out the garlic.

What made the biggest difference in Korean Aglio e Olio was the garlic. People all over the world loved garlic, but it wasn’t added in traditional Aglio e Olio. For Aglio e Olio, only one garlic piece was supposed to be added. But Koreans used a lot more than that.

That was because they didn’t like bland foods. Korean foods have strong flavors. And luckily, Cho Min Joon remembered that he was abroad. So he only used 3 pieces of garlic.

Before the spaghetti was cooked, Cho Min Joon heated up a pan and added olive oil. He then added garlic and pepper. A moment later, the noodles were cooked. They were perfectly cooked. If it was meat, it would have been a medium-rare.

Cho Min Joon filtered out the noodles and put it on a pan. He then added the broth. The broth made it taste more flavorful while also helping the oil and noodles mix well together. There were times when chefs didn’t add a broth, but that was only when the noodles gave off enough water so that no broth was needed.

Once the broth was boiled down, he added pepper. Some people cooked the pepper with the garlic together, but Cho Min Joon didn’t like the taste of burnt pepper. He preferred to just add it to the noodles to make the spicy flavors come alive.

At this point, it was almost complete. Cho Min Joon opened his mouth.

“I’m almost done. What about you guys?”

“The Guanzi is almost done too. I just need to fire it up in the end, so I’ll finish when you guys are ready.”

He heard Kaya’s voice. Cho Min Joon spoke again, “What about you, Chloe?”

“I’ll finish when you’re done, too. Aglio e Olio needs to be cooked down a bit. We can just eat it in the meantime.”

He didn’t bother asking Marco. Since he had already made the dough for the soufflé, he just had to put it in the oven at the right time. But Marco was ready to answer him anyway, but when he didn’t get asked, he dropped his head with a sad look on his face.

Of course, Cho Min Joon didn’t see this. Cho Min Joon turned off the burner and shook the contents of his pan. The noodles within it looked delicious.

He set up the noodles on the plates and sprinkled parsley on top. Most people thought parsley was just for decoration, but it was actually a strong herb. It couldn’t be left out of Aglio e Olio.

He didn’t add parmesan cheese to it. Whether cheese should be added to Aglio e Olio was still in debate abroad. It was similar to Koreans debating if eggs should be added to ramen. For that reason, he just put the bottle of parmesan on the table.

Cho Min Joon looked at the Aglio e Olio. Unfortunately, it was just 6 points. Cho Min Joon sighed. Without the help of a special recipe, it wasn’t easy for him to score a 7. He had been thinking a lot about his cooking skills these days. This all started when a recipe that was supposed to be a 7 turned into an 8 with Kaya’s help.

Of course, there was no use in being jealous of skills he couldn’t have. Cho Min Joon said, “I’m finished.”

“Me too.”

Chloe smirked and brought over the potato soup in the pot. People who didn’t know much about the West would have tilted their heads. Most thought that Westerners didn’t’ like to share food from one plate.

But it was pretty normal for Westerners to put the pot in the middle and put it on their own plates afterward. At least in America. Many also ate spaghetti that way as well.

Cho Min Joon looked at the soup. He was surprised. He saw the cooking score. But it was weird. It made him wonder if there was a problem in the system. Chloe tilted her head and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“No… nothing.”

Cho Min Joon smiled awkwardly and trailed off. But his eyes looked highly suspicious.

Chloe’s potato soup was a 6.