Yangnyeom Chicken
My first day working as a section cook.
“Eun-seong, congrats on the promotion!”
For the first time in a while, I finished work at the restaurant early and dropped by the fried chicken place where I used to work part-time.
“How does a high school grad become an official chef at a fine dining restaurant? And at a Michelin 2-star, no less! Proud of you, you little punk.”
Kang Seok-cheol. The owner of this chicken place and like a real older brother to me, he was happier about my promotion than anyone.
“From the first time I saw you, you punk! I knew you'd pull this off!”
“Aw, until a month ago you were telling me to come back and work here. Kept tempting me, saying you'd take me on as a full-time employee instead of a part-timer.”
At my joke, Hyung waved his hands.
“No, I just, you said if you were only an assistant there for two years... you might get fired... so I was worried.......”
“Aw, I'm kidding, kidding. Thank you so much for saying that.”
Truth was, this chicken place had taken me in when I was at my hardest. At the Chinese restaurant where I'd worked since I was twenty, I'd gotten nothing but scolded, but this place was different. Hyung had always treated me, a mere part-timer, like family.
“How's Eun-gyeol doing? Why didn't he come with you today?”
“He's a high school senior now, so he says he has to study and can't come.”
“Whoa! That tiny kid's already a senior?”
“Time flies, huh?”
“Man, time really flies. Then today you eat all this chicken by yourself.”
Hyung fried a whole four chickens for me to celebrate my promotion. He was always like that. For me, always hungry, he always gave generously.
I tore into a drumstick and slowly looked around the shop. The shop was exactly the same as when I'd worked there. From the menu to the interior, completely.
But just one thing was different.
The customers. There were no customers in the shop.
“But Hyung, why are there so few customers today?”
Strangely enough, no one came into the shop at all. So it almost felt like he'd closed the shop especially just for me.
“Haah.......”
Seok-cheol Hyung suddenly let out a deep sigh.
“The economy's bad these days... Eun-seong, I'm even closing tomorrow.”
“What? You're closing the shop, Hyung?”
Hyung's cooking skills were ordinary... but he was more diligent than anyone. Not during summer vacation season, not on Lunar New Year, not on Chuseok, his shop had never closed even for a single day.
“Rather than selling ten chickens a day, I figured it'd be better to just close on Mondays from now on. And I'm getting old now too.......”
He sighed deeply again.
“When you worked at our shop, you kept whipping up new menus left and right, so lots of customers came, but.......”
Hyung looked me in the eye.
“Eun-seong, if restaurant work gets too hard, you can just come to our shop. No, wait, you're an official chef now, so should I be telling you to tough it out at the restaurant to the end?”
I just nodded instead of answering.
“Ah, screw it, I'm in a good mood! Let's close up shop for today and just drink a ton!”
Hyung got up to go get the drinks.
Just then.
Bang!
“Boss! There are thirty of us, can we get chicken and beer right away?”
The shop door swung wide open, and thirty burly men came in. They were all flushed, looking like they'd gotten pleasantly drunk and come in searching for a place for round two.
Talk about a rice cake falling from the sky. Just as I was about to shout, ‘We can!’-
“Right now?”
Hyung froze in surprise.
“Hyung! What are you doing? Of course we take the customers right now.”
I quickly went up to Hyung and said.
“No, it's just... I only have five brined chickens.......”
Hyung whispered.
“What?”
“Tomorrow's my day off too... and customers haven't been coming lately.......”
“So you're just going to send the customers away like this?”
“There's no brined chicken... so, well, can't be helped.”
Brining. That was perhaps the most important step in making fried chicken. It was the process of marinating chicken in salt, spices, and the like so the seasoning sank all the way in and the meat became tender, and it usually took six hours at the shortest and around 24 hours at the longest.
What if you fried raw chicken that hadn't been brined? Obviously, it wouldn't taste good. So on days when the brined chicken ran out, you had to close up shop.
But.
“We still take the customers.”
“What? Without any brined chicken, how on earth?”
Of course it made no sense, but even so, I couldn't let thirty burly customers slip away like this. In this recession, it was a precious chance to make at least 800,000 won.
“You've got plain raw chicken in the fridge, right?”
“Yeah. I've got plenty of raw chicken.”
“Then we're good.”
I went straight to the kitchen.
“No, seriously, what are you going to do?”
“I'll brine it as fast as I can. Hyung, first give the customers heaps of puffed rice snacks, set out beer and soju first, and ask them to wait just twenty minutes.”
I quickly washed my hands clean and got right to work. I had to finish brining, which usually took over six hours, within five minutes. So first, I made the brine much stronger than usual. I quickly mixed more salt than the standard amount with water, sugar, garlic, onion, whole peppercorns, bay leaves, soy sauce, and fruit juice.
Then I cut the raw chicken into the smallest pieces possible. I sprinkled the brine evenly over the cut raw chicken so it would soak in as quickly as possible, then massaged it with all my strength.
Next, I made the batter. I seasoned the batter more strongly than usual too. The strongly seasoned batter would make up for the chicken meat the seasoning hadn't fully soaked into.
Finally, I set the frying temperature to 180℃ and-
Sizzzzzle.
Fried the chicken.
Fifteen minutes later, the raw chicken was reborn as perfect fried chicken.
“Hyung! Taste this once.”
I held out the finished chicken.
“No, raw chicken that wasn't even brined overnight can't possibly taste good.......”
With a doubtful face, Hyung bit into the chicken. And then-
“It... tastes good?”
He looked at my face in surprise.
“What is this? Why is it so good?”
“I just brined it really fast and really strong. Then I'll quickly fry twenty chickens this way.”
“Eun-seong. You really are a Michelin chef! How do you turn raw chicken into chicken this delicious in fifteen minutes?”
“It's nothing.”
I fried the chicken with a smile. And so the fried chicken was completed perfectly.
But the problem lay elsewhere. The yangnyeom sauce. To make yangnyeom chicken, I tasted the sauce the shop had.
“Hyung, did you change your sauce supplier?”
“Huh? No.”
“Then why does this taste so bad?”
Tasting it, the sauce tasted different from when I'd worked part-time. It was subtly pasty, and above all, the sauce's flavor didn't go with the chicken.
“Does it?”
“Does it?! The sauce tastes totally different!”
“Well, come to think of it, a customer did say the sauce had gotten worse a while back.”
He laughed sheepishly.
“You can't sell yangnyeom chicken with this sauce.”
I couldn't serve such bad-tasting sauce to customers.
“Then what do we do?”
“Obviously.......”
“Obviously?”
“I have to make it again.”
I quickly rummaged through the sauces in the kitchen. I found the familiar ingredients commonly used when making yangnyeom chicken sauce: ketchup, rice syrup, gochujang, and minced garlic.
Then I was mixing the seasonings in my own way, but.......
‘Something's missing.’
The strong acidity of ketchup, the straightforward sweetness of rice syrup, the pasty spiciness of gochujang, and on top of that, minced garlic. It definitely tasted good, but each one asserted itself too strongly, so they were all doing their own thing.
I hurriedly looked through the shop's fridge to fill in the missing flavor. But I couldn't add yet another strong ingredient here. I'd already seasoned the brine and batter strongly to speed up the brining. The sauce couldn't be harsh too.
I needed something to neutralize the strongly seasoned brine while giving flavor, that is, a deep taste that seeps in rich and thick, but.......
That was when.
‘As expected.’
The familiar fluorescent line appeared before my eyes.
By now, I could more or less guess the conditions for seeing the kick.
First, some problem would arise during the cooking process. I say problem, but usually that problem was mostly just that it didn't taste good.
Then I'd do my best to find a way to solve the problem. And once I'd found my own way to get about 60 to 70 percent of the best possible flavor, that line would appear without fail. A very bright fluorescent line.
The places where the kick appeared varied too. A restaurant kitchen or the tiny kitchen at our home, it didn't matter. When there was a dish I had to make and my will and effort to make it perfectly came together, those lines appeared without fail.
‘But why did I get this ability?’
Since that day, the tent bar never appeared again, and naturally, I couldn't see that grandmother either. So for now, I decided to think of it as something like a gift from some divine being to me for having worked so hard all this time.
‘From now on, let's do my best to make delicious food.’
I focused on the fluorescent line again. The lines before my eyes passed over various seasonings, then stopped at exactly one spot.
‘Peanut butter?’
That was today's kick.
In that instant, I realized the cause of the two percent that had been missing from the existing sauce. I quickly added a heaping amount of peanut butter to the sauce I'd made.
And tasted it-
It was truly... a perfect flavor.
The peanut butter gently pulled together the flavors that had been doing their own thing because too many strongly aromatic seasonings had gone in. The nuttiness of the peanuts was a bonus. Depth emerged in a sauce that could easily have been merely spicy.
The final kick was body. Compared to the rich, oily flavor of the chicken, the sauce I'd mixed was too light and sharp. But once the characteristic heaviness of peanut butter went in, it harmonized perfectly with the greasy chicken, completing the balance of flavor.
“Hyung, taste this once.”
Seok-cheol Hyung, who'd been serving fried chicken in the hall, wiped his sweat and lightly dabbed a bit of sauce on a spoon to taste.
“Whoa! Eun-seong. What is this?”
Hyung's eyes went round the moment he tasted the sauce.
“This tastes like something you'd actually sell.”
“We are selling it.”
“No, I mean it really tastes like the real deal. What is this? Why is it so good!”
He excitedly tasted another spoonful of sauce.
“Wow. You. Haven't your skills gotten way too good since I last saw you? You really are a Michelin chef, no, scratch that. At this level, you're just a genius chef. I seriously, properly acknowledge you. No, isn't this way too good?”
He kept tasting and doing nothing but marveling.
“Hyung, stop just marveling and hurry and toss it with the chicken. The customers are waiting.”
“Yeah. Got it!”
As soon as I finished speaking, Hyung quickly tossed the fried chicken in the sauce. Seeing that reminded me of the old days. It was like this back then too.... For a moment, old memories came back.
“Eun-seong, the yangnyeom chicken's done!”
“Already?”
As expected. A chicken shop owner was a chicken shop owner. His hands were really fast. I took the yangnyeom chicken Hyung had tossed and headed for the customers' table. And a little later.......
“Whoa, what is this sauce? It's just fucking delicious.”
“This chicken place wasn't originally this good...? Did the owner change?”
“I've got to save this place as a go-to spot right now.”
The customers' praise poured in.
“Boss! One more yangnyeom!”
“Fry one separately for me too. Yangnyeom. To go, please.”
“Oh! Then me too, one. No, three to go, please. All yangnyeom too. That's doable, right?”
The customers' additional orders poured in too.
“Yes! All doable!”
Hyung happily took every order. After the yangnyeom chicken was served, a whole forty more takeout orders were added. Thanks to that, I fried chicken nonstop, and Hyung had to serve nonstop.
When the shop's sales passed 1.5 million won, the shop finally went quiet. Before we knew it, it was one in the morning. Completely exhausted, we slumped down.
“Thanks, Eun-seong. Thanks to you, I made a lot for the first time in a while.”
“No. You're the one who worked hard, Hyung.”
“Here. Your part-time pay, 750,000 won!”
Hyung held out 750,000 won, half the sales, to me.
“What? Don't say such ridiculous things, Hyung.”
“What's ridiculous! Without you I couldn't have sold anything at all. If it were up to me I'd give you the whole 1.5 million, but... because of ingredient costs.......”
“Ah, forget it. I can't take this money.”
“Take it anyway!”
“I can't!”
And so the fight between us continued, and in the end-
“I've been promoted to section cook now, so I make pretty good money. Today I helped out on purpose because I'm grateful for everything you've given me, Hyung. I don't need the money. Instead, fry me chicken every time I come.”
With that, we more or less came to an agreement.
Hyung, put in a good mood by that-
“Ah, screw it, I'm in a good mood!”
Took out the fancy whisky he'd hidden away deep in a drawer.
“Here, let's eat, drink, and have fun!”
“No drinking!”
I stopped him.
“Why not this time!”
“You have to open the shop tomorrow too!”
“No. Tomorrow's my day off.”
“No, Hyung. I'll do all the brining and the sauce, so don't close; just keep the shop open. I wrote down the sauce recipe too, so look at it and make it exactly the same. Call me if you don't get it.”
“...Thanks, Eun-seong.”
Then, as if it had belatedly occurred to him, Hyung looked at my face.
“But wait, why won't you let me close the shop......?”
“You get even more depressed on your days off, Hyung. So never close, and open the shop tomorrow and the day after too.”
After a brief silence.
“But why are you so set on becoming a fine dining chef?”
Seok-cheol Hyung asked out of nowhere.
“Why ask that all of a sudden?”
Hyung thought for a moment, then spoke again.
“Because doing business with you like this after so long felt so good.”
I nodded. He was right. I liked this moment of making chicken with Seok-cheol Hyung too. It brought back old memories after a long time.
“You know, back when we worked together, you were happy too. You said just seeing customers enjoy the chicken you made made you feel good.......”
That was true. Just people enjoying the chicken I made had made me happy.
“Can't you just cook happily without stress in a small shop like this, like today? Do you really have to go as far as becoming a fine dining chef, of all hard things?”
Seok-cheol Hyung seemed to have known. That ever since I'd started dreaming of becoming a fine dining chef, my face had only kept growing darker. It was a worry he could have only because he truly cared about me.
I listened to his serious question and thought for a moment.
“Seok-cheol Hyung, this might sound a little funny, but.......”
I told him the reason I'd held out at a Michelin restaurant for so long.
“I want to make the most delicious food in the world.”
It hadn't been like that at first. I'd just liked cooking.
But the more I did it, the greedier I got. I wanted to make the most delicious food in the world with my own hands. Especially, I wanted to make the most delicious food in the world for the people who came to eat my cooking. And so, in the end.......
“I want to give people happiness through my food.”
That was how I truly felt.
After hearing what I said, Hyung suddenly said nothing at all. After a brief silence, he opened his mouth.
“Right. If you're born a person, you should live with at least that much ambition.”
Suddenly Seok-cheol Hyung went over to the chest of drawers. The one full of his treasures, where that whisky had been.
Thunk.
Hyung brought a box from there. Then he slowly opened the box in front of me.
“What's this?”
“A knife.”
Hyung went on.
“When I was thirty, I went to a very famous Japanese artisan and bought this myself. I waited more than five years to buy this. This thing's worth over 4 million won.”
“Why do you have such a precious knife, Hyung?”
Hyung smiled quietly at my question.
“There was a time I dreamed of becoming the best chef in the world too.”
Seok-cheol Hyung very carefully handed that knife to me.
“Don't give up like I did; push forward with everything you've got and make your dream come true, Eun-seong. I believe you can definitely do it.”
***
On the way home. In my left hand were three chickens, and in my right hand was the knife Seok-cheol Hyung had given me. Had the weather already warmed up? The night air that had definitely felt cold just yesterday no longer felt cold.
That was when.
Ring-ring-ring-ring.
My phone rang in my pocket. It was an unknown number.
“Who is this?”
-You don't even have my number?
Through the phone, I heard a very familiar voice.
“Chef?”
-Yeah. It's me.
It was Head Chef Yang Geon-ung's voice.