Netflix’s program, “Black-and-White Chef,” had sparked yet another chef boom in South Korea.
For the generation before it, there were the old stalwarts of domestic cooking survival shows, such as “MasterChef Korea” and “Korean Food War.”
The most famous cooking survival show overseas was Gordon Ramsay’s “Hell’s Kitchen.”
What these programs had in common was that all their contestants were experienced professionals.
In fact, in some programs, calling them “experienced” felt almost disrespectful—
over-specced monsters would take part.
A one-on-one showdown fought with the path of cooking they had walked, their pride, and their flavor on the line.
This place, where the elves’ cooking survival show, “El’s Kitchen,” had been declared.
In the dining hall kitchen of the Sildiel estate, such a battle was also…
“Who the hell cut the onions like this!!!!!!”
“I’m sorryyyyy!!”
…not happening.
When I picked up the onions Elf-brat No. 1 had sliced, they hadn’t been cut all the way through and were all still connected.
What is this… It looks like a paper-doll chain cut from colored paper with pinking shears to hang on a Christmas tree.
“The onions you cut are all stuck together, so we could use them as decorations on the branches of the World Tree!!!!!”
“Huh? Thank you for the compliment..?”
“Haa… Just cut another box of onions.”
“Hieeeek… My tears won’t stop…”
That completely killed the mood.
I gave No. 1 extra homework. You get a taste of something spicy.
The day after their failure to learn the recipe, unauthorized modifications, and deception of the chef were exposed.
I had the trainee elves come to work early in the morning and was making them build their fundamentals.
If you asked what the fundamentals of cooking were, you would get all kinds of answers.
Seasoning things properly so they were pleasant to eat was fundamental,
hygiene was fundamental, since the food at least had to be edible,
having basic culinary theory knowledge beforehand was fundamental, and so on.
All of them were absolutely correct.
Hygiene, in particular, was an extremely important concept.
However, the training I was making them do was another one of those fundamentals.
Tak tak tak tak tak—!
As one could tell from the ceaseless sound of knives striking cutting boards ringing through the kitchen, it was knife work.
I hated to admit it, but the elves were surprisingly strict about hygiene.
It was not that they were lookist, but perhaps because they valued nobility and dignity.
They kept up with personal hygiene, and even culinary hygiene, quite well.
And… when it came to seasoning and culinary knowledge, there was already no hope.
They had a living agricultural direct-sales market called the World Tree, yet they had lived with a wall built between themselves and cooking and gastronomy, hadn’t they?
Just looking at that, there was no longer any value in discussing it further.
Therefore, if their abilities were below zero and already in the negatives anyway,
it was fine to let them gain experience and grow slowly.
Their lifespans were disgustingly long, so after a hundred years, wouldn’t they become better at cooking than me?
I wouldn’t be in this world by then, though…
In any case, in many ways, it was reasonable to have them practice knife work first.
You can taste for seasoning, but if you can’t use a knife and slice your finger, it hurts.
The sooner they started, the fewer mistakes they would make in the future.
Because of that, the kitchen was filled with the pungent smell of onions from morning onward.
It was so sharp that even my eyes stung, despite having been trained by slicing onions for years when I was the youngest in the kitchen.
Onions, green onions, or shallots and leeks.
These vegetables, taxonomically belonging to the Allium genus,
shared the traits of being layered and releasing pungent juices.
Therefore, knife work that minimized the release of that juice was important.
There were various methods, such as cutting with a wet knife or soaking the onion in cold water.
But in the end, the key was “cutting well.”
No matter what method you used, it was pointless if you crushed the surface of the onion with the knife.
In that sense, the knife work currently unfolding in the kitchen was the worst of the worst.
“Hehe, sniff. I think… my knife work got a little faster!”
“Khing. Really! It was worth working hard.”
They were making a fuss among themselves while bawling their eyes and noses out.
What an el-fuss.
I approached No. 2 and No. 3, who had just been having that silly conversation.
“Your knife work got faster?”
“Eek. Yes… it did get faster.”
“Hmmm… How tragic. Truly, I can’t help but lament.”
“Pardon?”
I held up the onion pieces No. 2 had sliced… no,
had mangled, right under No. 2’s nose.
“Keheng! Kek!”
“I can’t stand how pitiful those onions are, dying so quickly because of your useless hand speed!!!!”
“Hieeeek…”
“Hey. No. 3. You’re the same. This isn’t cutting at all, it’s beating. You beat the onion to death. If the onion demanded compensation for assault, you’d have to sell even World Tree fruit to pay for it. Got it?!!”
“I-I’m sorryyyy!!”
Right. How could anyone be full after the first spoonful?
In the end, I had no doubt that if they worked hard, they would improve.
In that spirit, I threw another box of onions to No. 2 and No. 3 as well.
“No!! Waaayyyyy!!!!”
“Uuu… I can barely see in front of me…”
Frustration is what makes a man grow.
You’re women, but… interpret that appropriately.
Lastly, I inspected the results of No. 4, No. 5, and Iseria.
Their reddened eyes were striking, but all of them were holding back their tears as much as possible.
The very fact that they were able to keep from crying let me guess the quality of their work as well.
Hudududuk—
When I picked up a handful of sliced onions and scattered them, they separated nicely along the grain.
There were no pieces stuck together, and while the cut surfaces were not perfect… they were at an acceptable level.
“Mm, good. All three of you pass. Go take a short break.”
““Thank you, Chef!””
“Tha— ah, thank you!”
No. 4 and No. 5 rejoiced at my praise and went off to rest.
Iseria also tried to go take a break, but she kept glancing at me.
What was it? Did she have something to say?
“What’s wrong, Iseria? Is there something you want to ask?”
“Um, did I really do well… sir?”
“Hm?”
Iseria used strange grammar, perhaps because she was not used to speaking politely to me.
Still, what she wanted to say came across.
In other words, since Iseria and I had known each other from before, was I going easy on her out of affection?
“I, Kang Jinwoo, do not lie when it comes to cooking.”
But she could completely set aside that kind of suspicion.
Like a certain chef who said, “Never put anything on a plate that you haven’t tasted yourself.”
I, too, was a cook who had resolved not to lie with flavor.
“Yeah. You really did well. So you don’t have to think like that from now on.”
“Th-thank you!”
Only then did the knot seem to loosen, and Iseria went to rest with a much lighter expression.
I had not met Iseria much lately, but it seemed she had worked quite hard in the meantime.
When I thought back to when she came to my house… she had cut up that demonic wild boar magnificently.
I had wondered how an elf who had likely never even seen butchery could debone something so brilliantly.
Seeing the result now, it seemed Iseria was the talented type.
The delicate sensation transmitted to the fingertips holding the knife.
She severed each and every strand of the onion’s fibers with the keen edge of the blade.
Tudududuk—…
The control that minimized unnecessary damage to the cut surface during that process.
Even the exquisite tiki-taka between the guiding hand and the blade, performed instinctively.
She had enough skill to cut meat with magic and levitate objects.
I guessed that Iseria’s abilities were thanks to her sensitive senses.
Having a disciple who stood out made this feel needlessly more rewarding.
After finishing my inspection of Iseria, I looked around the kitchen again.
“Heeeek! Heek!”
“My eyes, my eyes are burning so much!”
Trainee elves No. 1, 2, and 3 were enthusiastically working on the homework I had given them earlier.
The three deadweights were doing knife work, while the other elves who had shown excellent results were resting.
In the meantime, I gathered all the onions they had sliced in one place.
Then I trimmed them again into the size suited for today’s dish.
Swish swish—!
Tak tak tak tak tak—!
I picked out only the onion pieces that were not fully cut or were too thick,
and sliced them into thin strips.
“Waaah…”
“As expected of you, Chef. Your knife work is on another level!”
“Eeeek. I want to cut like that too…”
The elves stared blankly after seeing my godlike knife work.
While everyone watched, saying it was amazing,
Iseria had her mouth hanging completely open, her gaze fixed on my fingertips.
From her perspective, it was knife work she had seen often, but after learning it herself, it must look different.
“If something looks easy, that person is an incredible master.”
Just like that famous saying, because I made cooking look easy, it must have really seemed easy.
But after trying it themselves, they must have realized the difficulty.
I had not re-sliced the onions to show off, but I unintentionally attracted attention.
After finishing all the prep work, I said,
“All right, you three over there. Stop now… and the elves who were resting, come in too.”
““Yes, Chef!””
The elves moved in perfect order according to my instructions.
Soon, they stood in a straight line in front of me.
“No. 1. What do you think this many onions will be used for?”
“Uuung… Tomato sauce, or ratatouille..?”
“That’s not wrong. But even if we used them to make that, there’s so much that we wouldn’t be able to use it all and would end up throwing some away, right?”
“Yes. There definitely are too many.”
The elves had probably felt it as well.
Knife practice was one thing, but why only onions?
Wouldn’t it be more efficient to cut the ingredients for today’s menu?
There were two reasons for this.
The first was the characteristic of onions I had mentioned earlier.
Onions, whose pungent juices were an ordeal, made your eyes sting less the better you cut them.
And since they were ingredients with endless versatility, once you sliced them, you could use them anywhere.
The second reason was that they would be used for a new menu.
Without another word, I brought over a large pan and placed it over the fire.
The elves, who still did not know today’s breakfast menu, simply stared in confusion.
“Today’s menu has these onions as the main ingredient.”
“Pardon? The onions?”
“Yeah. We’re making onion soup.”
Chiiiiik—!
I poured oil into the heated pan and dumped in a heap of onions.
The onions lost their moisture with a satisfying Maillard hiss.
The core of today’s dish, “onion soup,” was precisely this.
“Watch carefully. And… if possible, go around telling anyone you can about it.”
“U-understood!”
That way, elf culinary culture would develop.
I thought onion soup would allow them to practice knife work, and that the elves would be able to eat it with relatively few likes or dislikes.
Also, since the cooking process was not entirely simple, it was appropriate for building the basics of cooking.
A French home dish completed by sautéing onions, pouring in stock, and bringing it to a boil.
But when you examined the details, it was French food for a reason.
“First, sauté the onions until they turn brown.”
“Uh… if they turn brown, doesn’t that mean they’re burnt?”
“No. Slowly over medium-low heat, as if you’re evaporating the moisture. This is called ‘caramelizing.’”
The trainee elves pricked up their ears and focused on my explanation.
I lowered the heat and sprinkled salt over the onions.
Before long, due to osmosis, the onions released the moisture they contained.
The moisture that seeped out touched the surface of the pan and continued making a chiiik sound.
“Whatever the ingredient is, if you sprinkle salt on its surface, it releases moisture. Especially when it’s an ingredient you’ll grill or sauté, it’s good to salt it about ten to twenty minutes in advance to remove the moisture inside as well.”
“What’s good about removing the moisture?”
“It becomes easier to create savory flavor through browning, and you can shorten the cooking time.”
Chiiiiik—…
The onions gradually turned translucent and softened, revealing their insides.
I added butter and continued sautéing them.
Butter and oil had different smoke points.
Therefore, if you put butter in from the beginning and sautéed with it, there was a risk that the butter would burn later and ruin the flavor of the food.
Hm, there are a lot of concepts I have to teach them going forward.
I’ll explain smoke points later with another dish.
If you put too much knowledge in at once, they won’t be able to absorb it properly.
“You can’t put butter in together from the beginning. Add it when the onions turn translucent.”
“Uh, why?”
“Just accept that it’s like that. I’ll tell you later.”
“Hiiing…”
I lightly ignored No. 1’s question.
Not long after, the onions slowly began to take on a brown hue.
Though it was still a light brown, not yet a deep shade,
I put the light-brown onions and the raw onions on plates and handed them out to the elves.
“Try them yourselves and see how the two onions taste different.”
“Sniff, sniff. It smells good! It doesn’t feel spicy at all…”
“It really doesn’t. But I don’t want to eat the raw onion…”
“Eat it while I’m asking nicely.”
“Hieek…”
The elves took the light-brown onions and the raw onions.
They put a little of each into their mouths and compared the flavors.
“It’s sweet! The brown onion is sweet and tasty!”
“It doesn’t taste like the onions I knew…”
“That’s why it’s called caramelizing. As you sauté them, you drive off the moisture and sharpness in the onions and leave only the sugars behind.”
The elves nodded again and again, their eyes shining with curiosity.
Iseria tasted the onion too, and her eyes widened as if it was different from the flavor she had expected.
Before long, the caramelized onions had been sautéed to a deep brown.
On the bottom of the pan remained the source of flavor that had stuck there as it cooked—the fond.
In French, the word could also mean “bottom,” and it was the root of the dish name “fondue.”
As a culinary term, fond referred to the concentrated flavorful bits stuck to the bottom.
And the process of scraping up that fond was called deglazing.
That was the skill I was about to show the elves.
I poured in a small amount of the white wine I had prepared and scraped vigorously, as if dissolving the fond.
“In cooking, the crystallized flavor stuck to the bottom of the pan is called fond, and you must never throw it away. You have to dissolve it with wine or stock and incorporate it back into the food. That’s called deglazing.”
“Hieek. Somehow… somehow it’s difficult.”
“There’s suddenly so much we have to know…”
The elves focused as hard as they could, trying to keep up with my merciless injection of knowledge.
Even so, I could see they were struggling a little.
Still, the difficult part was over now.
I added the vegetable stock, white wine, and herbs I had prepared in advance to the caramelized onions and brought it to a boil.
Bubble, bubble…
Aside from the salt used earlier to draw out the moisture, it still hadn’t been seasoned,
so I seasoned it properly with salt and pepper.
There was no need to boil it for very long.
Just enough for the vegetable stock and onions to meld together—ten to fifteen minutes was plenty.
Soon, the onion soup was simmering, giving off a sweet aroma.
But this was not the end.
“Heek. It smells so delicious…”
“Is it still, still not ready?”
“It’s almost done, so wait just a little longer.”
I transferred the onion soup into a vessel, then placed thin slices of crisp toasted bread on top.
And then, sprinkled over it until the bread was covered, came Parmesan cheese… or rather, Noirdel cheese, something with a similar nuance.
Since Parmesan cheese was made in the Parma region, I should call this Noirdel cheese.
The onion soup was piled high with cheese grated like white snow.
I put the entire vessel into the oven and waited for the cheese to melt.
“Heek, heeek… Delicious food I’ve never seen before. Delicious food!!”
“I don’t like cheese that much. But even so, it looks so delicious…”
At some point, the elves had completely forgotten this was a cooking lesson, their eyes fixed on the onion soup.
The vegetable soup they usually ate had a mushy texture, a taste that felt like it had stopped halfway to becoming something, and a visual that killed the appetite.
The beautiful contrast between the rich brown and the pure white cheese.
They could not withstand the onion soup’s sweet caramelized aroma, which stimulated their empty morning stomachs.
After confirming that all the cheese had melted, I took out the onion soup.
“Now then, it’s complete.”
“T-this is soup made only with those onions?”
“Hurry. Please give it to us quickly!”
One of the two great pillars of French home cooking, standing shoulder to shoulder with ratatouille.
A hot, sweet broth bursting with umami.
The appearance of “French onion soup.”