Balsamic Glazed Pearl Onions with Bacon -- On Aging, Depth, and the Things That Take Time

I signed up for a Korean cooking class at a kitchen studio in the International District. Not the kind of class Karen took in Bellevue — this one is for people who already cook Korean food and want to go deeper. The instructor is a Korean woman named Misook who runs a small catering business and teaches on weekends. The first class is next Saturday: advanced kimchi making — not napa cabbage kimchi, which I can do in my sleep now, but specialized varieties: kkakdugi (radish kimchi), chonggak kimchi (ponytail radish kimchi), and baechu geotjeori (fresh, unfermented kimchi salad). Three styles of kimchi in three hours. I'm unreasonably excited.

In the meantime, I spent this week perfecting my doenjang jjigae — the dish I decided weeks ago to iterate on until it matched the halmeoni in the ID's version. I've made it twenty-three times now (I've been counting), and this week's version was a breakthrough. The key, I finally realized, was time. Not cooking time — fermentation time. The doenjang I'd been buying was good quality but relatively young. This week I bought a tub of 3-year aged doenjang from H Mart, and the difference was staggering. The aged paste was darker, more complex, with a depth that the younger paste lacked — the same way aged cheese differs from fresh, or aged kimchi from new. The jjigae I made with the 3-year doenjang was the closest I've come to the halmeoni's version: deep, earthy, complex, the broth dark and rich, the flavor lingering after each spoonful. Not identical. But close. Closer than I thought I'd get in a year.

Work is steady. The inventory system architecture is in implementation phase, and I'm managing three engineers who are building the components I designed. Management is new for me — I've always been an individual contributor, the person who codes, and now I'm the person who watches other people code, which requires different skills: communication, patience, the ability to let someone else's solution be good enough even when I would have done it differently. I'm learning. I'm not great at it. But I'm learning, the same way I learned to make kimchi: by doing it badly until I do it less badly.

Dr. Yoon introduced a new concept this week: "cultural reclamation." She said what I've been doing — learning Korean cooking, studying the language, building Korean friendships — is a recognized process among transracial adoptees, and it has a name. Cultural reclamation. The act of actively claiming the culture you were born into but raised outside of. It's not cultural appropriation (I asked, because the distinction matters to me) — you can't appropriate your own birth culture. It's reclamation. Taking back what was yours. The word "reclamation" feels powerful and also heavy, because it implies something was taken, and something was taken — my culture, my language, my food, my identity. The taking was not David and Karen's fault. They didn't take my Korean culture; the adoption system did, the social structures did, the well-meaning but incomplete understanding of transracial adoption in the 1990s did. But the result is the same: a Korean woman who didn't know she was Korean until she was twenty-two and started making kimchi. The reclamation is the response. The cooking is the evidence.

Saturday: Bellevue. Karen made her famous chili. I brought the breakthrough doenjang jjigae — the version with the 3-year aged doenjang. Karen tasted it and said, "There's something different about this one." I said, "Older doenjang. Three-year aged." She said, "It's deeper." Yes. Older. Deeper. The doenjang and the woman who made it. Both aging. Both deepening. Both getting closer to the thing they're supposed to be.

Daniel and I had coffee after Korean class. He told me he's thinking about going to Korea. Not to search for his birth parents — he's not ready for that — but to visit. To walk the streets, eat the food, hear the language. To be Korean in Korea, even briefly, even as a tourist, even as someone who speaks the language badly and navigates the culture clumsily. The idea terrifies and excites me. Korea. The country I'm from. The country I've never been to. The country that exists in my kitchen but not in my experience. Daniel said, "Think about it." I said, "I will." I'm thinking about it. I've been thinking about it for a year. But thinking and going are different verbs, and going requires a courage I'm not sure I have yet.

After the breakthrough with the 3-year aged doenjang this week, I couldn’t stop thinking about fermentation and time — how the same base ingredient, given years instead of months, becomes something categorically different: darker, more layered, more itself. I wanted to cook something else that honored that idea, something where aging and patience are the whole point. Balsamic vinegar is, at its core, the same logic: grapes, time, transformation. These glazed pearl onions let the balsamic do what it does best, and the slow render of the bacon underneath builds a depth that a faster version simply wouldn’t have. It felt like the right thing to make on a week when I finally understood what waiting is actually for.

Balsamic Glazed Pearl Onions with Bacon

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 1 lb pearl onions (fresh or frozen; if fresh, blanched and peeled)
• 4 slices thick-cut bacon, cut into 1/2-inch lardons
• 3 tablespoons aged balsamic vinegar
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• Fresh flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped, for garnish

Instructions

1. Prep the onions. If using fresh pearl onions, bring a small pot of water to a boil. Score an X in the root end of each onion, blanch for 1 minute, then transfer to an ice bath. Once cool, squeeze each onion from the stem end to slip off the skin. If using frozen pearl onions, thaw completely and pat dry with paper towels.
2. Render the bacon. In a wide, heavy skillet over medium heat, cook the bacon lardons, stirring occasionally, until the fat has rendered and the bacon is golden and crisp, about 8–10 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the bacon to a paper-towel-lined plate, leaving the rendered fat in the pan.
3. Sear the onions. Add the pearl onions to the skillet in a single layer. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until they develop golden-brown color on multiple sides, about 10–12 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Build the glaze. Reduce heat to medium-low. Add the balsamic vinegar and brown sugar to the pan, stirring to coat the onions. Let the mixture bubble and reduce until it forms a syrupy glaze that clings to the onions, about 4–5 minutes. Watch carefully — balsamic can go from glossy to burnt quickly.
5. Finish and serve. Return the bacon to the pan. Add the butter and thyme leaves, tossing everything together until the butter is melted and the onions are evenly coated. Taste and adjust salt if needed. Transfer to a serving dish and garnish with fresh parsley. Serve warm.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 185 | Protein: 5g | Fat: 12g | Carbs: 15g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 290mg