Chapter 83

Chapter 83

Spicy Taste Dish

Of course this lodging also doubled as guest welcoming use, so the kitchen and dining room were separately separated.

Korea's traditional houses heavily used the living room developed from the maru as guest welcoming or family-centered space, Britain the dining room did that role.

I explained grandly but it's nothing special. If just placing one long dining table they just called it dining room.

I first sat the three people on the dining table chairs.

"Come, for now the three sit here and chatter."

"J-Mr. Jean?! What on earth dish is it that you do so?"

"Miss Edith, if a chef one has to know well the five tastes a person can feel and be able to apply I taught, right? What is that?"

"Uh... Sweet, salty, sour, spicy, umami...?"

"Right. Today I'll show the essence of spicy taste."

"S-spicy taste?!"

"Do you dislike spicy taste?"

"No, I don't particularly dislike..."

Her pupils slightly shaking with tension was felt.

Traditionally British cooking almost doesn't use spicy taste, but lately in the upper class the tendency to enjoy that taste changed a bit.

As Indian-style curry was introduced they realized about the charm of intense spicy taste.

For example chicken Madras or mulligatawny soup such were essential popular menus that always come out at Indian cooking specialty stores, both enter chili so quite spicy.

Of course this is British standard. Somehow at London restaurants they nerfed the spicy taste matching British tastes.

Still there was fun seeing gentry who don't want to lose dignity with just one spicy thing and forcibly eat while shedding tears and snot.

"Don't worry. I'll make less spicy than Madras."

"What on earth dish is it that you do so...?"

How should I explain this?!

What was lingering in my head was jeyuk bokkeum I ate at the orphanage.

It was so long since eating I almost forgot that taste to that point.

Korean man's soul food, jeyuk bokkeum.

But unbefitting that name the history was very short. Only in the late 20th century it rose to the eating out list, and even in the private houses of Joseon of the current era there was nothing one could call jeyuk bokkeum.

That is in 19th century Britain thanks to the livestock revolution even lower class laborers could eat pork to the full one or two meals a week, but in Joseon pork was still an expensive food ingredient.

In Britain breed improvement, factory-style breeding, feed development, slaughter technology and processing technology development, invention of refrigerated warehouses etc. overlapped at once and meat prices sharply lowered, in my view without this British-style industrialization big cities couldn't have been made.

Because meat was appropriately distributed in the market people could do hard labor without worrying about eating.

If not that there's no way my samgyeopsal would have become a big trend in London either.

The problem was, the point that jeyuk bokkeum is a dish that doesn't exist yet in this era. So no suitable word came to mind how to explain this.

If slightly wrong won't even jeyuk bokkeum disguise as British cooking?!

No, anyway these people also don't know whether this dish actually exists or not.

So I decided to roughly gloss over.

"Well, for now it's a dish similar to Durand Grilling, but think of it as a version of putting spicy taste on pork. This dish can't be made without Joseon's 'gochujang' in the East, today I specially obtained that food ingredient and am making."

"Oriental special spicy Durand Grilling?"

"No... It's not Durand Grilling! I didn't create it! Rather please call it 'Spicy Joseon Pork Stir-fry'!"

"Stir-fry? Mr. Jean, what is that again?"

"It's a cooking method popular in the East. The method of lightly oiling the pan and stirring a small amount of ingredients while grilling."

"Ah! Another new knowledge?! I'm curious can I watch from the side?"

"Well, do as you like."

Understood, right? I glanced back at the remaining two people. Both Joe and Lee Ha-yeon couldn't follow the flow of the conversation and had question marks on their faces.

Joe has never experienced spicy taste so it would have been hard to understand, Lee Ha-yeon seemed not to have properly understood because our words were too fast.

As for me it's good. Because there's no need to bother explaining this and that. Of course, from the start I had no thought of explaining either.

I went down to the underground cellar and brought onion, garlic, sugar, butterhead, and leek.

What is leek, it's British green onion. Both are plants of the allium genus so the appearance is similar to green onion, and the taste is a bit sweeter. Anyway the use is also similar so compatible.

One can say it's an appropriate food ingredient for Britons weak to spicy taste.

And I took out pork from the icebox. It was brought to eat samgyeopsal, but for jeyuk bokkeum the samgyeopsal part is also the best.

There's no particular correct recipe for jeyuk bokkeum.

Because gochujang itself is an aged seasoning paste with very deep flavor, just adding the texture of pork here is enough to bring out a plausible taste.

The remaining ingredients only play the role of catching the off-odor of the meat and adjusting the concentration of the taste.

There's a reason jeyuk bokkeum is soul food. Unless considerably ruining the cooking or the quality of ingredients is bad, the low point is very high.

So even at the orphanage I liked this most as rice side dish.

After a long time I was thinking of recalling the hand taste recipe of the nun director I missed and making. The tip of the nose being slightly sore is because the onion is spicy, right?

"Can you mince this garlic a bit? Because I have to marinate."

"Yes, understood!"

I lightly poured white wine on the pork. And mixed a little soy sauce, garlic Miss Edith minced with the knife tip, sugar, pepper.

Although there's already sweetness in gochujang and onion, the reason for additionally putting sugar is because sugar helps tenderizing action making the meat softer, and the seasoning seeps well.

Putting kiwi or plum extract instead of sugar is better, but because there isn't.

And I mixed gochujang, soy sauce, sesame oil and made seasoning paste.

Preparation was sufficient with this level.

In a pan lightly oiled with olive oil I sequentially put the briefly marinated pork, diagonally sliced leek, prepared onion, and seasoning paste and stir-fried.

It's fine to put gochujang when pre-seasoning, but I preferred putting at the end. That way it burns less, and the color also comes out more vividly.

The secret of taste for pork is cooking quickly on high heat but if putting gochujang first this all burns.

Because gochujang has high viscosity, and is a seasoning with various components including chili powder concentrated so when receiving heat it easily sticks from the bottom surface.

The core is moisture control.

If first stir-frying the meat and vegetables before putting the seasoning paste and flying the surface moisture, the remaining oil makes an oil film on the pan and prevents gochujang from burning, and even helps the seasoning coat the meat evenly.

"It looks... very spicy?! The nose is also slightly painful..."

"It's only the color! It's really not spicy!"

I briefly tasted and trembled my body and admired.

The first taste is sweetness, and following that the spicy taste spreads poking the tip of the tongue. When the savory yet umami pork goes down the throat, even without particular thought suddenly I started getting crazy hungry!

This taste! This is exactly jeyuk!

In this environment it would be hard to stir-fry more delicious jeyuk than this.

I put the completed dish on a plate and brought it to the dining table.

"...Hmm."

"Ah..."

Joe wasn't much different from Miss Edith. Is it because immunity to spicy taste is lower than Miss Edith? An expression that looks quite reluctant.

But Lee Ha-yeon who is sincere about spicy taste to the point of spreading gochujang on bread and eating certainly showed a different reaction.

"This... This... Can I really eat?!"

"Of course. Eat as much as you want. There's more."

Moreover she seeing the butterhead lettuce I brought out together, seemed to have immediately recognized that meaning.

Ssam is a long-standing food culture already widely spread among the people from early Joseon. There would have been a reason butterhead lettuce at least came up on the table even if nothing else at the legation.

Lee Ha-yeon quickly held one lettuce leaf, and stabbed jeyuk with a fork and pushed full one ssam into the mouth together with garlic.

And not even a few seconds passed her exclamation echoed as if piercing the ceiling.

"R-really delicious! Although a food eaten for the first time it's the familiar taste of hometown! I'm so happy I feel like tears will come!"

"Delicious, right?"

Then Miss Edith who was half-believing also quickly picked up the lettuce.

Somehow the action looks strangely familiar, it seems the Earl of Derby continued wrapping ssam even at home?!

"...Ah!"

"Okay?"

"H-I'll eat just one more bite!"

I know Edith's weakness. She was very weak to spicy taste. Soon her face reddened and sweat formed in beads on the forehead.

But looking at the reaction it doesn't seem she dislikes that much?

"Cough, Mr. Jean, where on earth did you find this dish?! It's spicy but my hand keeps going!"

Of course I knew such a question would come out. I thought of a response method.

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I found it when going to the British Museum Library together for the jellied eel matter last time. There was a book missionaries who visited Joseon wrote that Joseon people make very delicious dishes with spicy seasoning paste. Because I like spicy taste I was aiming to test once sometime. Fortunately it seems to have gone well."

This is fact. Just in case an excuse is needed I briefly took time and dug things like Eastern travelogues, and discovered a book titled 'Korea and Her Neighbours' published a few years ago.

There kimchi and gochujang etc. content was written? I quickly remembered.

In fact I dug Hamel's Journal first, but that unlike missionaries Hamel lived the life of a poor lower class in Joseon and wrote so there was no good content about food at all.

While I, Miss Edith, Lee Ha-yeon were stuffing jeyuk bokkeum lettuce ssam full in their mouths as if competing, finally Joe also seemed to have made up his mind and carefully picked up the lettuce.

"Boss, this feeling is the first for me. Even when eating grandmother's haggis such anxiety didn't arise..."

"This guy, are you comparing your house's Irish monster dish with my gourmet food now? You don't trust my cooking?"

"That's absolutely not! If together with the boss I'll follow even hellfire in purgatory!"

"You speak well!"

He tightly closed his eyes and pushed the lettuce into his mouth. And soon opened his eyes wide. A gaze where surprise and admiration flash.

"...Strange? I'm not spicy at all? And too delicious, Boss! To my taste this is much better than the pizza I ate earlier! And this lettuce the aroma is also really good! It matches the meat too well!"

This guy has innate resistance to spicy taste. Is it because trained with haggis?

If just overcoming the only entry barrier of jeyuk bokkeum the spicy taste, this is really an excellent dish that doesn't fall behind wherever put out.

The reason is in the inherent characteristics of gochujang.

The raw materials used jocheong and meju themselves are deep flavor fermented foods, and while mixing chili powder and aging it goes through fermentation once more so it's a complex fermented food.

That is, it means flavor and umami are tremendously concentrated in the paste.

Food ingredients with such characteristics are hard to find anywhere in the world.

Here another fermented food soy sauce and garlic, sesame oil were additionally added, if no taste isn't it strange?

"Joe, this isn't spicy? My tongue feels like it's completely burning?"

"Miss Edith, to me it's not spicy at all! Sweet and delicious!"

"It's sweet but... More than that the meat is soft so I really like!"

Miss Edith while saying so didn't stop her hand

Spicy taste is the taste with the strongest addictiveness among tastes.

In reality it's light pain, but the brain secretes endorphin the natural painkiller to alleviate this pain so rather stress is relieved.

It was a principle similar to runner's high felt when exercising.

After eating spicy food rather one obtains a refreshing or cool feeling, so spicy taste is regarded as a kind of challenge, and if overcoming it one even feels a sense of achievement.

Also, because it strongly stimulates the senses in the mouth food with spicy taste appropriately mixed also has the effect of stimulating appetite.

The tendency of Britons culturally pursuing delicious food less, somehow I thought might be because of the environment where food ingredients that bring out such spicy taste almost don't grow.

Spicy taste at most mustard or ginger is all, but certainly less stimulating than chili.

"Mr. Jean, can't we sell this at our restaurant?! Among dishes eaten lately it was the most delicious!"

"Haha... It's not prepared enough to sell. Still since gochujang is full in the jar buried in the backyard, if wanting take as much as you want and use for research. Miss Lee Ha-yeon will make."

"Yes, if only ingredients are prepared I'll make anytime!"

I was also satisfied. We patted our bellies seeing the empty plates.

Of course I felt a greater sense of achievement in another aspect.

The jeyuk bokkeum I couldn't properly make while watching eyes until now, now I became able to make and eat as much as I want!

By any chance did the gypsy fortune teller I met at the pizza festival site predict this? Later if meeting I have to give the unpaid fortune telling fee a bit thickly?

If knowing it would be like this I should have gone to the legation earlier! I just wasted time for nothing!

In the midst of that, suddenly my status window started blinking greatly.

I jerked my gaze down.

【 Time-limited Quest: Spread spicy taste to Britain (Time limit: 1 week) (0/1 round) 】

What on earth is this talk...?!

It was a sudden quest.