Loaded Chicken Carbonara Cups

I have been making mandu — Korean dumplings. I had never made them from scratch. Eunji, in her Tuesday letter, casually mentioned that she makes mandu with Jisoo every Lunar New Year. She said it like it was nothing. Like it was just what you do. Lunar New Year is next Tuesday, February 1. I have decided I will make mandu this year for the first time. I will try.

I bought the wrappers at H Mart. I made the filling on Saturday — ground pork, minced kimchi, soft tofu (pressed dry and crumbled), scallion, garlic, ginger, sesame oil, soy. I mixed it with my hands until it held. Then I folded the mandu one by one. The first thirty were ugly — lopsided, bursting, amateurish. The last thirty were better. By the end I had the hang of the pleating technique Eunji had described in a video she sent me. (Eunji has been sending me short videos. Four, now, in the archive.)

James sat at the counter drinking tea while I folded. He watched me get better. He said, "You went from zero to tolerable in three hours. That is your engineer brain." I said, "It is my obsessive brain." He said, "Same brain." I said, "Fair."

The mandu simmered in a beef broth on Sunday night. Tteokguk-with-mandu style. Jisoo had written about this combination — in her family, on the Lunar New Year, both are in the pot. The rice cakes represent the new year, the mandu represents the harvest. I ate a bowl. James ate two. I sent a photo to Eunji. She wrote: "You are making mandu. Stephanie unnie. You are making mandu." The word "unnie" landed different this time. It landed permanent. The word is mine now. I am someone's older sister in a language I am still learning.

Work: the Alexa project shipped its first Q1 milestone Wednesday. We are on track. The team is stable. I got a nice email from the director. I filed it in the folder called "things to remember when I am tired." The folder has fifty-two emails.

Karen's aide, Rosa, is becoming part of the household. Karen has started looking forward to Rosa's mornings. Rosa bakes — she brings a small baked thing once a week, unprompted. This week it was pan dulce. Karen said, "She's the best thing David has hired in twenty years." David said, "I hired the Toyota." Karen said, "The Toyota was okay. Rosa is better." I love my parents.

Dr. Yoon: we talked about the business idea again. I told her about the notebook. I told her I had been drafting, quietly, a rough business plan. I had been looking at meal kit revenue models, comparable companies, unit economics. She said, "You are being an engineer about this." I said, "I know no other way." She said, "An engineer can found a food company. It has been done." I said, "I know." I know. I am not going to found the company this year. Or next year. The wedding is first. The Busan trip is first. The Karen-Parkinson's situation is first, in the way it will always be first for the rest of Karen's life, which could be a year or ten years and we do not know. But the notebook is real. The notebook is being filled in. The business, if it comes, will come when it comes.

The recipe this week is kimchi mandu. The dumplings of the Lunar New Year. I will publish the full recipe because Eunji gave it to me and told me I should publish it, because, she said, "more people should eat it." Eunji bossing me around across an ocean is, I am discovering, one of my favorite kinds of love. I did not have a sister growing up. I have one now. She is a nurse. She is twenty-two. She is correcting my Korean grammar in every letter. I love every correction.

I will be honest with you: the kimchi mandu recipe is Eunji’s, and she told me to publish it, and I will — in its own full post, with her name on it, because it deserves that. But in the meantime, between now and that post, I want to give you something that lives in the same spirit: a recipe that uses the exact same wonton wrappers I bought at H Mart, that rewards the same patient, repetitive folding, and that ends with something golden and warm and full of filling. These Loaded Chicken Carbonara Cups are what happened when I had leftover wrappers and a refrigerator full of odds and ends the week after Lunar New Year. James ate six. I ate four. The mandu trained me for these — and I was ready.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 12 cups

Ingredients

24 wonton wrappers
1 1/2 cups cooked chicken, shredded or finely chopped
4 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
2 large eggs
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for topping
1/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped, for garnish
Nonstick cooking spray

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Heat oven to 375°F. Lightly coat a standard 12-cup muffin tin with nonstick spray.
Form the cups. Press two wonton wrappers into each muffin cavity, overlapping and angling the corners outward so they form a deep, sturdy cup. Press gently against the sides so there are no large air gaps at the bottom.
Make the filling. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and heavy cream until smooth. Fold in the shredded chicken, crumbled bacon, minced garlic, Parmesan, salt, and black pepper. Stir until evenly combined.
Fill the cups. Spoon the filling into each wonton cup, filling about 3/4 full — leave a little room so the filling does not bubble over. Top each cup with a pinch of shredded mozzarella and an extra dusting of Parmesan.
Bake. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until the wonton edges are golden and crisp and the filling is just set in the center with no visible jiggle. If the edges brown too quickly, loosely tent with foil after 15 minutes.
Cool and serve. Let the cups rest in the tin for 5 minutes before removing — they will firm up as they cool. Run a thin spatula or butter knife around the edge to loosen if needed. Transfer to a plate, scatter with fresh parsley, and serve warm.

Nutrition (per serving)

Loaded Chicken Carbonara Cups — The Wonton Wrapper That Taught Me to Fold