Despite having stayed at the rather luxurious Sildiel family mansion, it seemed fatigue had been accumulating without me realizing it.
Maybe because I’d slept for nearly half a day, my back was stiff and my head felt heavy, as if I’d taken on water.
I barely managed to get up and took care of the backed-up household chores.
“Ugh… I’m dying.”
*Clatter─*
Tables and chairs, and all sorts of shelves that had been neglected for a long time.
Dust had piled up thickly on the kitchen utensils, the large furniture, and the floor.
I opened the front gate, fixed it in place, and flung all the windows wide open.
After checking that air was flowing through, I quickly dusted everything off…
Since the shop was now clean, I had to finish all the backed-up dishes too.
Large and small plates still coated with pajeon oil.
Dishes are a hassle before you start, but once you plant yourself at the sink, they finish before you know it.
After some rattling around, the dishes were soon done.
Then now… is it time to open that thing I’d been putting off?
“Ah, I’m so scared.”
Learned fear evoked a terrible sensation.
Chunks of flesh so grotesquely necrotic that their original form was unrecognizable.
A nauseating stench that assaulted the olfactory membranes.
Surfaces so dried out that it was hard to believe they had once held life.
“Gotta do what you gotta do…”
Even so, it was something that had to be done.
One─
Two─
Three─!
I took a deep breath along with the countdown in my mind.
And, I opened the refrigerator door.
Like the floodgates of a dam filled to its limit opening, the rotting stench inside the refrigerator began spreading at a frightening speed.
I grimaced, making all kinds of faces, as I organized the corpses one by one with gloved hands.
‘Ugh, damn.’
This is an onion? This blackish-red, pitch-black phlegm-like thing that looks like someone with a terrible cold spat out after a ten-minute struggle?
The once-smooth green onions had turned yellowish and mushy like snot, and the leaves of various herbs had dried up and lost their vitality.
It’s obviously not my first time seeing rotting ingredients, but it’s always a fresh experience every time.
I finished the work while desperately sucking in air from the opposite direction of the refrigerator.
Fermentation is just a hair’s breadth away from decay, so how does it change so drastically with just the difference of a single sheet of paper?
I’m a chef, not a scientist, so I don’t know the details.
With the food waste cleanup completely finished, I could finally breathe easily.
*Sniff, sniff-sniff─*
Still, the faint lingering stench in the air bothered me.
Now that I thought about it, even if there were business hours left, I’d just pull down the shutters if I was tired.
It was a restaurant that had closed for nearly ten days recently without a word… but a restaurant is a restaurant.
If such a foul odor wafted around, any customers who might come would surely be displeased.
I took out the World Tree leaves and sap I had received from Nuardel.
If I place a few leaves on a suitable plate and drop just one droplet of sap?
*Swoosh─…*
Immediately, a refreshing fragrance spread to every corner of the shop.
The rotten stench that had tormented my nose until moments ago vanished without a trace.
Not only does it remove foul odors, but its performance as an air freshener is outstanding too.
To think the elves had been keeping such a good thing to themselves…
“Hm?”
But even after deodorizing once, something… some kind of pungent smell pricked my nose.
It wasn’t disgusting or unpleasant, but strangely sharp, a fragrance that made me want to keep smelling it.
Oh, no way?
Sour yet spicy, an intense smell of fermentation so strong it felt like a sneeze was coming.
With excited eyes, I opened the bottom drawer of the refrigerator.
What appeared inside the drawer was something sealed tightly in a double-layered container…
“The kimchi is ripe!”
Kimchi. Crisp and refreshing, the very identity of Koreans.
The kimchi stored at the bottom of the refrigerator had fully ripened.
It had already been over three months since I made it, so it wouldn’t be strange for it to have fermented.
But before going to Nuardel, it definitely hadn’t been this ripe.
I had closed the refrigerator door properly too… so why?
“Ah, damn.”
Holding that question, I took out a head of cabbage kimchi.
*Screeeech─…*
I discovered a fire spirit sleeping soundly inside the kimchi container.
It seemed to have sneaked in while I was transferring the kimchi to a side-dish container.
And since I hadn’t noticed and closed it tightly before putting it in the refrigerator drawer… the fire spirit must have been bewildered too.
It had entered because of the smell similar to fermenting paste, but suddenly the lid closed, and inside the refrigerator the temperature kept dropping.
The fire spirit, faced with a life-or-death crisis, must have raised the temperature with all its might to avoid freezing to death.
In that process, the kimchi had rapidly fermented.
No wonder the kimchi container, which I’d placed in the coldest area after the freezer, had been lukewarm.
“Hey… you okay?”
*Fweeeh…*
I hurriedly sent the fire spirit outside.
So it hadn’t been sleeping; its body had stiffened from lack of energy.
Squirming as it felt the sunlight, the fire spirit blinked its tiny black sesame-seed-like eyes.
After leaving its body to the scorching sun for a moment, it recovered its energy.
Now then…
“How long has it been since I last ate kimchi jjigae?”
When kimchi is ripe, you must boil stew.
This is an obvious fact recorded even in the Goguryeo Watermelon Charts.
I immediately prepared the ingredients for kimchi jjigae.
One head of kimchi, one bowl of kimchi brine.
Ingredient prep is done.
Like doenjang jjigae, kimchi jjigae also has various styles.
The bunsik-jip style with green onions, onions, tofu, and even canned tuna, sweet and spicy.
The style with thickly sliced pork neck or shoulder, boiling until the jiggly fat completely melts.
Or the style with mackerel or pike mackerel, highlighting the spicy kimchi flavor with the oiliness of blue-backed fish.
But the kimchi jjigae I was making was none of these.
‘Just my family style.’
Bone broth? Anchovy stock? I don’t use them.
With just one well-ripened head of kimchi and its brine, I can create a flavor that doesn’t envy any animal-based ingredient.
*Chop─*
*Chop─*
First, cut the kimchi into slightly large pieces.
Not cutting it at all is inconvenient to eat, but cutting it too small is also a no-go.
The key to today’s dish is time.
For the cooking method of boiling it down slowly over a long time, the kimchi pieces had to be large.
If you cut it small, there’s more surface area exposed to the broth, so the flavor itself seeps out quickly.
But what I’m making now is kimchi jjigae, not kimchi guk.
If it were kimchi guk, you could slurp down finely cut kimchi with rice, so that’d be fine.
Kimchi jjigae is about taking one piece of kimchi boiled for a long time until it becomes translucent and glossy, placing it on a big bowl of white rice…
…and scooping it up with a spoon to go *waah*-ing into your mouth—isn’t that the hearty comfort of it?
Therefore, cut the kimchi into large sizes so that even when boiled down for a long time, it retains its shape.
If it becomes too finely chopped, it turns mushy and you get a texture where you can’t tell if this is kimchi jjigae or kimchi soup.
Once you’ve finished cutting the kimchi, put it in a pot and add enough water to barely submerge it.
And… if you turn on the heat and boil it vigorously?
Today’s cooking, done.
To shorten the cooking time, some cut the kimchi into bite-sized pieces, if not finely chopped.
There are also those who stir-fry it until the moisture evaporates and the kimchi wilts.
Well… do you really have to go through all that trouble?
Just roughly chop it, add water, and boil it for a long time.
In the first place, kimchi as a food already contains all the ingredients.
Garlic, ginger, chili powder, fermented shrimp or fish sauce, salt, et cetera…
Therefore, even without adding extra ingredients, as long as the kimchi was made properly, you get a sufficiently delicious stew.
The kimchi jjigae will make itself now, and the other thing I need to do…
‘Ah, I need to register the jang.’
The [Mana Market] whose level rose in Nuardel.
As the category of food ingredients expanded, processed foods could now be registered as ingredients too.
Various fermented foods and handmade condiments that require tremendous time and effort, and even flavoring oils like sesame oil.
I previously had to suffer and make them painstakingly one by one, but now I no longer needed to.
I immediately registered all the processed foods in the restaurant.
=====
▲
「Doenjang」
「Ganjang」
「Gochujang」
「Chicken Powder」
「Sesame Oil」
▼
=====
‘Is this status window for real? My chest feels grand…’
To make those jang, I had to soak beans, boil them, mash them, weave straw to hang meju blocks…
I raised all kinds of hell to make them, but now I could get them with a single click.
I had thrown away the chicken stock because it all spoiled during my long absence.
But the ‘Chicken Powder’ made by drying and grinding remained.
It was a plain seasoning without the abundant MSG that is the essence of modern food engineering, but it could at least mimic a fraction of that taste.
This seasoning too was registered in the [Mana Market].
When I first learned of this ability, I couldn’t even imagine such a free lunch.
Honestly, just obtaining ingredients in exchange for a bit of mana was already a cheat, so it’s right to say I didn’t expect more.
Yet the grace bestowed does not stop…
World Tree registration, what? Anxious because you don’t know its identity?
Yeah, it’s Big Bro. Big Bro will make you gochujang anytime, anywhere.
Controversy is put to rest by an even greater controversy.
The unknown identity of the status window was overshadowed by overwhelming convenience.
The Jjajang-Jjajang Fruit that I had previously considered as half a joke.
Now… isn’t it something achievable?
Summoning jjajang inside someone’s head… would probably be difficult.
No, jjajang is closer to a finished dish than a processed food… so if I were to do it, it’d be chunjang.
‘Chunjang-Chunjang Fruit, possible?’
If I ever face a threat to my life later, I’ll try using it effectively.
Not inside the head, but just exchange a whole basin of chunjang and pour it over them.
Thinking about it like this, maybe it’d be better to make and register capsaicin once.
While my imagination ran wild as if I had become a devil ability user, an irresistible smell wafted from the kitchen.
A signal that the kimchi jjigae was about halfway done.
“I should start the rice now, perfect timing.”
I put pot rice on using the rice I had soaked in water.
The pot rice ripening savory and sweet, and the kimchi jjigae boiling spicy and hot.
The taste you can feel without even eating it.
But the taste you never get tired of even if you eat it every day.
I added a little water every now and then so the kimchi jjigae wouldn’t become too salty.
As the kimchi jjigae slowly reduced, when the kimchi had re-absorbed with a *swoosh*- the umami that had come out of it—
I turned off the heat, drizzled a generous amount of sesame oil, covered the lid, and finished it.
Perilla oil would be much better if I had it, but I still couldn’t find perilla seeds, so it couldn’t be helped.
Soon, the white rice with glistening sheen was also done.
“I can’t wait. Grrr.”
This was a heartwarming spread solely by me, for me.
There was no need for cumbersome pretenses there.
I scooped a bowl of rice and brought the whole pot of kimchi jjigae over to sit down.
*Swoosh─!*
When I opened the lid of the kimchi jjigae filled with hot steam, a sight that had become even deeper as the flavors seeped in during the brief time met my eyes.
Honestly, it looked closer to kimchi jjim than kimchi jjigae.
But… so what?
Who else in this other world knows about kimchi jjigae anyway?
“This is… Gang Jin-u style kimchi jjigae.”
I scooped the broth and kimchi at once with a ladle and carefully placed it over my rice bowl.
The snow-white rice slowly dyed by the dark red stew broth.
The rice had absorbed the kimchi broth evenly between its grains, each kernel moist and distinct.
I placed a large piece of kimchi on top of that rice and lifted it completely with my spoon.
And,
*Waaah─!*
I opened my mouth so wide my eyes nearly closed, and stuffed it in in one go.
“Hoo, damn…”
Seriously… it’s so delicious. This is it.
They say that the more similar the genetic information of humans is, the worse that human’s body odor feels.
Conversely, the body odor of someone with different genetic information is said to feel attractive…
If that’s an instinctive function for the propagation of the species, then what is this current phenomenon?
The phenomenon of kimchi jjigae’s aroma making me go crazy and jump for joy… what should it be defined as?
The natural sweetness of glucose emanating from the starch of white rice.
The intense, fiery spiciness intertwining with that sweetness and pummeling the taste buds on the tongue into submission.
The tangy sharpness of the kimchi that had sucked up the concentrated umami and saltiness—it’s violence on par with an injury requiring eight weeks to heal.
But sesame oil covers that violence with its savory smoothness… this is really…
“Yas.”
Even setting aside that it’s kimchi jjigae, the experience of emotions exploding due to supreme taste.
It slams catharsis into the peripheral nerves to a degree comparable to the reproductive act of the human organism.
If this isn’t yas, then what is yas?
Sweat trickled down from my head, but I paid it no mind.
As if resolving the grudge of eating only Western-style food constantly in Nuardel,
I simply voraciously devoured the kimchi jjigae before my eyes.
By the time I had polished off two bowls of rice and half the kimchi jjigae, it was still broad daylight with the sun high at its zenith.
At that time when normal people would be hard at work farming or doing business, when social activity is at its most vibrant,
“This… is yas.”
I spent the broad daylight indulging extravagantly in the instinct known as appetite.