Chinese Chicken Pasta Salad

Mid-June. The recipe card project continues. This week: gyoza. Miya at the counter, flour on her shirt, filling in a bowl, wrappers laid out in rows. She is six and she folds gyoza with the determination of a person who has been told this is important and believes it. Her folds are uneven, her crimps are inconsistent, and approximately thirty percent of her gyoza burst during cooking, spilling their filling into the pan in a drama of steam and pork. The remaining seventy percent are edible and she eats them with pride, the pride of a maker who has made something, imperfect but real, standing on her stool in a kitchen that her great-grandmother built and her grandmother inherited and her mother preserved and she, Miya, age six, is now entering as a participant rather than an observer.

I visited Ken in Sacramento. Monthly pilgrimage, the road I know by heart now. Ken's medication is working — the tremor is managed, not eliminated, but managed enough that he can still hold a cup and still write and still garden with Marco's help. The managing is the goal. The managing is what Parkinson's offers: not a cure but a negotiation, a daily conversation between the disease and the medication, the body and the chemistry, the man and the thing that is changing the man. Ken negotiates silently, the way he does everything: without complaint, without drama, with the stubborn endurance that Nakamuras bring to everything, the endurance that is the inheritance, the inheritance that is sometimes a burden and sometimes a superpower and is always, always, the way we survive.

I cooked Fumiko's hayashi rice for Ken — the Japanese beef stew over rice, rich and dark. Ken ate it and said, "Your grandmother's." Not a question. A statement. A recognition that the food he was eating was the food his mother made, prepared by his daughter, in his kitchen, from a recipe card written by a dead woman whose handwriting I can now read without help. Three generations in one pot of stew. The pot holds them all. The pot is large enough.

After a week of gyoza crimping with Miya and hayashi rice simmering for Ken, I found myself craving something that lived in that same Asian-flavored world but came together quickly—something I could make on a Tuesday without pulling out a recipe card written in my grandmother’s handwriting. This Chinese Chicken Pasta Salad has become exactly that dish for us: a bright, sesame-scented meal that feels like a nod to the flavors Miya is growing up with, the kind of thing she can eventually make herself when she’s old enough to handle a knife and young enough to still think cooking with me is fun. It doesn’t carry the weight of three generations the way the hayashi rice does, but it belongs in the same kitchen.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

12 oz linguine or thin spaghetti
2 cups cooked chicken breast, shredded or thinly sliced
2 cups green cabbage, thinly shredded
1 cup red cabbage, thinly shredded
1 cup shredded carrots
4 green onions, thinly sliced
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves
1/3 cup sliced almonds, toasted
2 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted
For the dressing:
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 tablespoon peanut butter or tahini
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)

Instructions

Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook linguine according to package directions until al dente. Drain, rinse under cold water, and set aside to cool completely.
Make the dressing. In a small bowl or jar, whisk together soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, peanut butter, honey, ginger, garlic, vegetable oil, and red pepper flakes until smooth and fully combined.
Prep the vegetables. While the pasta cools, shred both cabbages, shred the carrots, and slice the green onions. Combine in a large mixing bowl.
Toast the almonds and sesame seeds. In a dry skillet over medium heat, toast the sliced almonds and sesame seeds together, stirring frequently, for 2—3 minutes until golden and fragrant. Remove from heat immediately.
Assemble the salad. Add the cooled pasta and shredded chicken to the bowl with the vegetables. Pour the dressing over everything and toss well to coat all ingredients evenly.
Finish and serve. Fold in the cilantro leaves. Transfer to a serving platter or individual bowls and top with toasted almonds and sesame seeds. Serve immediately or refrigerate up to one hour before serving—the flavors deepen as it sits.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chinese Chicken Pasta Salad — The Kitchen That Holds Three Generations