A Blank Slate Regression for the Idol That Lost His Original Mindset - Chapter 421

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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A Regression Guide for Idols Who Lost Their Original Intent Episode 421

“Hyung, about the tteokbokki, how about substituting the rice cakes with dumpling wrappers? Wouldn’t that be unique?”

Would he not accept this since it’s one of the recipe modifications that Seo Yehyeon had asked for?

But there really was no other way besides this. If I boiled ramen and submitted that, there was a risk of getting criticized for approaching the broadcast without sincerity.

Kimbap also has rice, but there’s no way I’d have the skill to make kimbap with just rice. I’m confident I could mash up rice and present it as rice balls, but I wasn’t confident I could handle the consequences that would follow that action.

Let me say this again – rice balls and ramen aren’t a matter of sense, but a matter of sincerity.

“Hmm, wheat rice cakes are also flour-based rice cakes, so they’d be similar to dumpling wrappers, right?”

“Right, if you don’t have teeth, use your gums; if you don’t have rice cakes, use dumpling wrappers.”

“It sounds unique and decent, but since it’s your idea, I’m really anxious…”

“Then hyung, you come up with a better idea than this. I’ll definitely follow it. When it comes to cooking, you’re better than me.”

“What low-calorie street food is there…?”

“We’re not the ones eating it, hyung.”

“I know, but I can’t make high-calorie food.”

I couldn’t put on an act like that. No matter how much you act, Seo Yehyeon was showing firsthand that there’s an insurmountable wall between acting and the ‘real thing’.

Seo Yehyeon was so fixated on low calories that he couldn’t think of other alternative menus, and eventually dumpling wrapper tteokbokki was selected as our menu.

Finally, it was our turn to choose ingredients.

I tried to recall what ingredients were used when I made konjac tteokbokki before, but all I could remember was dumping ingredients that had been prepared and measured out into a pot all at once and boiling them.

“Hyung, what ingredients do we need?”

When I asked Seo Yehyeon, who was putting cabbage in his basket to help with ingredient gathering as the time limit timer rapidly decreased, Seo Yehyeon pointed to the dumpling wrappers with his fingertip.

“I roughly learned the seasoning ingredients when I wrote down the konjac tteokbokki recipe before, you know? First, you go over there and get dumpling wrappers, green onions, and a few eggs.”

When I grabbed a bunch of dumpling wrappers, Seo Yehyeon urgently stopped me.

“Don’t take all of those, just one-third! We’re not making lasagna!”

Even though I’m bad at cooking, I know that we don’t need this many dumpling wrappers for our dish. I just picked up the whole thing intending to tear off an appropriate amount. What does he take me for?

Seo Yehyeon was now skillfully gathering tteokbokki seasoning ingredients. He looked unusually reliable, so I also felt at ease and generously took five eggs so we wouldn’t run short.

At the timer signaling timeout, I returned to our assigned spot with the ingredients I had gathered. Seo Yehyeon, who was checking the ingredients I brought, looked at the eggs with a sour expression and asked.

“Do we need to put in five boiled eggs? Don’t tell me it’s one for each judge?”

“I did that in case we ran short.”

“Two is enough. Now, you boil two eggs first. You know how to boil eggs, right?”

“Come on, who can’t boil eggs? But how many minutes should I boil them? 5 minutes?”

“Who can’t boil eggs, indeed. You can’t boil them. If it’s 5 minutes, forget the yolk – even the white won’t cook. Boil for 9 minutes. You know you have to add a pinch of salt when boiling, right?”

“Oh, of course I know.”

Even I know the common sense that you should add salt and vinegar when boiling eggs so they don’t crack while boiling and the shells peel off easily when peeling.

The problem was that this common sense didn’t occur to me when I was getting eggs from the ingredient section, and only came to mind after Seo Yehyeon mentioned it.

“But I didn’t bring salt. You brought it, right hyung?”

“I didn’t bring it either. Can’t help it. Just boil them. It’s good – less sodium intake.”

“Let me say this again – we’re not the ones eating it, hyung. We need to satisfy the judges’ taste buds.”

“Even so, we can’t boil them with soy sauce.”

Since we were filming a broadcast and in front of cameras and panelists, the tone of our words to each other couldn’t be any softer than this.

If it weren’t for the broadcast, we would have called each other blockheads and calorie-obsessed, said everything we wanted to say, and cooked comfortably.

I put water in the pot with eggs, and helped next to Seo Yehyeon who was wetting dumpling wrappers with water and rolling them up like garaetteok. After confirming that I was faster and more meticulous in completing them, Seo Yehyeon left the dumpling wrapper garaetteok-ification to me and started preparing green onions and cabbage.

With skillful knife work, he quickly prepared vegetables for tteokbokki and minced garlic, then Seo Yehyeon began making the tteokbokki seasoning.

After mixing red pepper powder, gochujang, soy sauce, and minced garlic, Seo Yehyeon asked me seriously.

“In my memory, the recipe called for one spoon of sugar, you know? But if I put that much in, it seems like it would be too sweet. Wouldn’t it be okay to reduce the sugar to about half a spoon?”

“Let me say this for the third time – we’re not the ones eating it, hyung. Follow the recipe.”

The process up to blanching cabbage in water, dissolving the seasoning, and adding the dumpling wrappers rolled up like rice cakes went smoothly, but after the tteokbokki broth started boiling, the difficulty suddenly escalated to hard mode.

“I even wet them before rolling, so why are they falling apart? There must be a reason this is happening!”

“Hyung, try not stirring it.”

“But if I don’t stir this, it’ll stick to the bottom.”

“Really? What should we do?”

“Let’s stir it for now. Dumpling wrappers falling apart is better than it sticking and burning.”

As we stirred more, the visual became increasingly disastrous, and both my and Seo Yehyeon’s expressions grew darker. We tried our best to plate it prettily in a bowl, but…

“Is this right…?”

Looking at the dumpling wrapper tteokbokki that had become even more disastrous with torn and tattered pieces, Seo Yehyeon muttered in an enlightened voice.

When I tried one of the dumpling wrappers left in the pot, perhaps because Seo Yehyeon’s hands had touched it rather than mine, the taste was pretty decent. But taste wasn’t what mattered right now.

“Isn’t this visual too serious? Can we really submit this as cooking? They say food only needs to taste good, but appearance still accounts for 60% of it. Can we present something that looks like dog food?”

“Dog food? Hyung, that’s rude to dog food. These days dog food comes out better than human food.”

“I see. So our result is worse than dog food.”

With a dazed voice and face, Seo Yehyeon nodded his head.

“When we’re being judged, hyung should stand in front of the judges. Use your face to prevent them from focusing on this finished product’s appearance. How about it, isn’t that a good idea?”

“Should I?”

Normally he would have shot back telling me to stop talking nonsense, but seeing how seriously he was taking it, it seemed Seo Yehyeon also realized we were properly screwed.

Well, if you can’t feel a crisis looking at this finished product’s visual, you should go to an ophthalmology clinic and get an eye exam.

The harsh criticism we’d hear in the judging evaluation if we submitted this as is was easily predictable. The taste isn’t particularly problematic, so if we could just somehow fix the appearance. Like covering the top.

Then, following the dumpling wrapper tteokbokki, a second brilliant idea flashed through my mind. I turned to look at Seo Yehyeon and said resolutely.

“Right. Hyung, let’s cover it.”

“What, cover it how? Cover the top with dumpling wrappers? That would actually be better visually. How many dumpling wrappers are left?”

“No, not dumpling wrappers.”

Following where my finger pointed, Seo Yehyeon moved his gaze, blinked his eyes, then nodded as if he understood belatedly.

Time to show off my only cooking specialty.

While Seo Yehyeon took the pot with the remaining tteokbokki off the burner and put a frying pan on instead, I quickly cracked three eggs into a bowl and whisked them.

I carefully poured the egg mixture into the heated frying pan and held chopsticks in my right hand.

“There are 3 minutes left, you know? Can you make it in that time?”

“In 3 minutes, I could make ten of them.”

I replied confidently to Seo Yehyeon’s worried question and began making the tornado omelette that I could now do with my eyes closed.

I used chopsticks to pull the egg mixture spread in a circle on the frying pan from both edges toward the center in one big motion, then slowly rotated the chopsticks in that state to create the tornado shape.

When the shaped egg was somewhat cooked, I lifted the frying pan and poured it over the bowl to complete it.

Now the tteokbokki that had looked terrible was hidden under the tornado omelette and couldn’t be seen.

“Oh, the visual is so good I’d believe it if you said it was omelet rice instead of tteokbokki.”

Honestly, I should be named today’s MVP as a human being. To save this, really.

Ding-

I was patting myself on the back while ringing the bell signaling completion when I paused, realizing something peculiar about my words.

“But wait a minute. Don’t street food places sell omelet rice too?”

“They do…?”

“What did we do?”

“Right…?”

Both of us were dumbfounded by this stupid behavior that was like walking not just a long way when there was an easy path, but practically through a remote wilderness.

Let’s think positively. At least we got broadcast footage with a unique dish.

As I stood next to Seo Yehyeon humbly waiting for our turn to be evaluated, a status window unfolded in front of my eyes on its own.

[Item Inventory]

[-Cooking King Dae Jang Geum: Cooking ability increase for 1 hour]

I see. There was a cooking ability enhancement item.

If you had something like this, you could have told me before filming, you damn system that’s no help at all.

My blood pressure is already rising from thinking of omelet rice just now, so why are you showing me this now? So I’ll collapse here from high blood pressure?

* * *

After finishing the broadcast filming and returning to the dormitory completely drained, Kim Dobin, who had finished filming 【Trouble Travel】 and returned to Korea, and Ryu Jaehee, who like us had finished his schedule and come back, came running to the entrance.

Even though I carry the weight of being the head of the family, this kind of staging where they come out to greet me after my schedule ends is a bit much…

Before I could even say that this wasn’t necessary, instead of a greeting asking if I had arrived safely, urgent questions poured out like they were rushing me.

“Hyungs, what place did you get?”

Right, these guys haven’t reached that level yet either. But shouldn’t asking if the filming went well come first, rather than asking about our ranking? Huh?

“Why are you asking that?”

When I asked bluntly, Kim Dobin answered with sparkling eyes, and of course poured out words I hadn’t even asked for.

“We made a bet. I bet on 3rd place because Yehyeon Hyung was there, and Youngest Member bet on 4th place saying there was a 50% chance high-calorie food would come up as today’s theme.”

Are bets popular again these days? Seeing how Ryu Jaehee was definitely involved, it was clearly Ryu Jaehee’s new hobby.

Instead of answering, I held up one finger.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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