Chimichurri Chicken

October. The leaves in Volunteer Park are turning — not the dramatic New England blaze but the Pacific Northwest version, more gold than red, more gradual than sudden, as if the trees are changing their minds slowly. I walked through the park on Sunday morning and noticed, for the first time, a group of Korean people — older adults, maybe in their sixties — practicing tai chi on the grass. I stood watching for a few minutes. They moved in unison, fluid and deliberate, and I thought about how in a different life — a life where I wasn't left at a doorstep, where my birth mother could have kept me — I might have grown up around people like them. I might know tai chi. I might speak Korean. I might not be standing on the outside of a circle, watching.

Dr. Yoon and I talked about something she calls "the fantasy of the unlived life." The alternate reality where I wasn't adopted, where I grew up Korean in Korea, where I speak the language and eat the food and know the culture without having to learn it from YouTube at twenty-three. She asked me what that life looks like, and I described it with embarrassing specificity: an apartment in Seoul, a mother who makes kimchi, a school where everyone looks like me, a life where identity is inherited rather than constructed. Dr. Yoon said, "That life might have been beautiful. It also might have been difficult. Your birth mother was seventeen and unmarried in a conservative culture. The reasons she gave you up were real." I knew this. But hearing it from Dr. Yoon — in the context of therapy, in the context of my fantasy — landed differently. The unlived life is not a paradise I was stolen from. It's a possibility that was foreclosed by circumstance, and grieving it is valid, but romanticizing it is a trap.

This week I made samgyetang — Korean ginseng chicken soup. A whole small chicken stuffed with glutinous rice, ginseng, garlic, and jujubes, simmered for hours until the chicken is falling-apart tender and the broth is milky and restorative. It's a summer dish in Korea — eaten on the hottest days, a counterintuitive tradition of fighting heat with heat — but I made it in October because I needed something restorative, and samgyetang is the Korean equivalent of Jewish chicken soup: medicine in a bowl.

The cooking was meditative. Stuffing the chicken, tying its legs, submerging it in water, watching it simmer for three hours while I sat on the couch with my Korean textbook. The apartment smelled like ginseng and garlic, herbal and grounding. The result was extraordinary — the rice inside the chicken had absorbed the broth and become a creamy, savory porridge, and the chicken itself was impossibly tender, flavored through with ginseng and jujube. I ate it slowly, pulling chicken from the bone with chopsticks (I'm getting better — not good, but better), and felt the soup doing what soup does: warming from the inside out, nourishing not just the body but something deeper, something the Koreans call jeong — a word that roughly translates to deep emotional bonding, the kind of love that accumulates through shared experience and proximity and the daily act of feeding someone.

I have jeong with this kitchen. With these ingredients. With the onggi pots and the Zojirushi and the gochugaru-stained cutting board. I have built jeong over six months of cooking Korean food alone in a Capitol Hill condo, and the jeong is mine — not inherited, not given, but earned through repetition and intention and the stubborn insistence that I can cook my way into an identity I was born with but never raised in.

Kevin called Saturday. He's doing well — seven months sober, dating the girl (her name is Maria, he finally told me), still roasting coffee. He asked about therapy and I told him about the unlived life and he said, "Yeah, I used to think about that too. Then I realized I was living this one, and it needed my attention." Kevin. Seven months sober and dispensing wisdom like a monk. Recovery has given him something that adoption took — or never gave — to both of us: the ability to be present in the life he has instead of mourning the life he doesn't. I'm working on that. The samgyetang helps. Presence always tastes better when it's warm.

The samgyetang I described above is the dish my heart wanted, but chimichurri chicken is the one I’ve kept coming back to on the weeks that follow — nights when I need the meditative act of cooking herbs into something vibrant and alive, without a three-hour simmer. There’s something in the ritual of chimichurri — chopping parsley until your knife is green, pressing garlic, pouring oil slowly — that asks you to be present in exactly the way Kevin described: in this life, at this cutting board, feeding this version of yourself. It won’t replace the bowl of ginseng broth, but it keeps the spirit of intentional, nourishing cooking alive on an ordinary Tuesday.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 6 oz each)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
For the chimichurri:
1 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, tightly packed
3 tablespoons fresh oregano leaves (or 1 teaspoon dried)
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Instructions

Make the chimichurri. Finely chop the parsley, oregano, and garlic by hand or pulse briefly in a food processor — you want texture, not a smooth paste. Transfer to a bowl and stir in the red wine vinegar, red pepper flakes, salt, and black pepper. Stream in the olive oil while stirring. Taste and adjust seasoning. Set aside at room temperature for at least 10 minutes to let the flavors bloom.
Pound and season the chicken. Place chicken breasts between two sheets of plastic wrap and pound to an even 3/4-inch thickness. Pat dry with paper towels. Rub all over with olive oil, then season with salt, pepper, and smoked paprika.
Cook the chicken. Heat a cast-iron skillet or grill pan over medium-high heat until very hot. Add the chicken and cook undisturbed for 6–7 minutes. Flip and cook another 5–6 minutes, until the internal temperature reaches 165°F and the exterior is deeply golden.
Rest and serve. Transfer chicken to a cutting board and let rest 5 minutes. Slice against the grain, arrange on a platter, and spoon chimichurri generously over the top. Pass extra chimichurri at the table.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chimichurri Chicken — When You Cook to Find Yourself