Geum-Young (Hong Ri Na) goes to talk to Jang-Geum (Lee Young Ae) who is making her fermented soybean pastes. Geum-Young tastes one of the samples and asks how it doesn’t stink like it usually does. Jang-Geum tells her it’s because she used coal to kill of the smell. Then Geum-Young goes back to the kitchen and asks her mom if she can make the next meal for the princess. So she use the coal to remove the smell from the rice and the princess eats the whole thing. It’s because she added the same ingredient Jang-Geum used to kill of any smell, as it turns out princess was turned off by the smell of food. The whole Royal Kitchen gets rewarded and all the supervisiors are praising Geum-Young. But Keum-Young mentions she was inspired by Jang-Geum’s method.
Later comes the celebration of King JungJong’s birthday. The ambassador from Ming Dynasty presents precious golden rooster which was reared by the Ming Dynasty Royal Palace itself. Geum-Young is told to guard the bird for a couple of days. She puts it in the cage but the cage door gets loose and the golden chicken is missing the next morning. Geum-Young is panic, and decides to sneak outside of the palace to ask her relative Choi Pan Sul if he can find another golden chicken for her. (It’s against the palace rule for the girls to leave without permission). On her way to sneak out, she runs into Jang-Geum who offers to help. So the two sneak out together. They go out and arrive at the Choi Pan Sul’s house but he’s out for a few days so Jang-Geum offers to make a trip to Kang Deok Gu to see if he can help since he’s well versed in imported goods. So they part their way and decide to meet the next morning. Jang-Geum finds a bird after a lot of trouble. But while she is on her way to meet up with Geum-Young she runs into a group of people fighting, and she decides to save the injured person (Min Jung-Ho). So she is very late when she gets to Choi Pan Sul’s house and Geum-Young is already leaving to the palace, although she has been waiting for quite a long while despite repeated chase by Court Lady Choi to go back to palace. They also found a golden chicken, and ensure that the route back to the palace is safe.
Jang-Geum has to sneak back into the palace all by herself but the route she used to escape was sealed off so she’s stuck outside the palace and gets caught by the guards who later take her to the Royal Kitche.