Potsticker Salad

Cold snap — twenty-eight overnight. Surprising for Seattle. Amazon this week. Sprint planning Tuesday. Two hours of meetings I could have been a Slack message.

Hana, 1, a small loud animal. She mostly eats rice and bananas. Jisoo FaceTimed Tuesday. We made doenjang jjigae together — me in Wallingford, her in Haeundae. Eleven thousand miles. The same soup.

Sundubu jjigae. Soft tofu, kimchi, gochujang, raw egg cracked in at the end. The Saturday night standard.

Drove to Bellevue Saturday. Karen was tired. I brought soft food. She ate.

I drank tea on the porch in the rain. Standard Seattle. The kitchen warm behind me.

The shiso on the south fence is fragrant and unruly. I brushed past it taking the compost out and the smell stopped me. The smell is the country. The smell is Jisoo's apartment.

A blog reader wrote about her own adoptee experience. We exchanged three emails this week.

Reading at night. A novel by a Korean-American writer about a family in 1990s LA. I underlined four sentences. The underlining is the marking-of-the-territory of the soul.

I sat at the kitchen counter at six AM with a notebook and a cup of green tea. Writing time before the house wakes. The pre-light hour is the only writing hour I trust.

I texted Jisoo a photo of the kimchi in the new onggi pot. She replied with the thumb-up emoji and a Korean-language critique. The duality is the gift.

Therapy Tuesday with Dr. Kim. We talked about the parents — the two sets, the one living, the one gone, the one who became real after thirty years and the one who was real my whole life and is now gone. The work is the layered work.

Sunday farmers market on Wallingford Avenue. The kabocha at the Asian vendor's stall. The shishito peppers. The brokered conversation. We bought too much. We always do.

The kimchi crock was bubbling Saturday morning when I checked. The bubbling is the right bubbling. The fermentation knew what it was doing.

Hana left a Lego on the kitchen floor. I stepped on it at two AM. Standard.

The Capitol Hill apartment kitchen is small. We make it work.

Rain on the porch all afternoon Saturday. The Wallingford rain is its own weather. I sat with a book and a tea and did not move for two hours.

I made coffee at seven. Hana ate cereal at seven-fifteen. Min wandered down at seven-twenty-five. James left for work at eight. The morning was the morning. The standard.

My Korean is improving. Slowly. Painfully. Conversationally adequate now. I can argue about kimchi proportions in two languages, which is a milestone in any marriage between mother and daughter.

James and I had date night Friday. Indian restaurant on 45th. We ate too much. We sat in the car after talking about nothing for an hour. The marriage is the marriage.

Sprint review at Amazon Friday. Two hours. I could have been on a podcast.

I read a thread on the Korean Adoptee subreddit Saturday. Some posts brought up old anger. Most are people figuring it out in real time. We are not unique. We are a community.

The newsletter went out Sunday morning. The opening sentence took an hour. The piece took five. The piece was what it needed to be.

Jisoo sent a photo of the dol the kids did for our visit last summer. The photo went on the fridge.

Yoga Tuesday morning at the studio. The forward fold released something I had been carrying in the shoulder. The mat is the mat.

David came over for Sunday dinner. He brought some tomatoes from the Bellevue garden.

The sundubu jjigae is the Saturday standard, the ritual — but some weeks I want something that carries the same flavors without the full ceremony, something I can pull together on a Tuesday night when Hana is loud and I’m still processing therapy and the kimchi crock is already doing its slow, confident work in the corner. This potsticker salad is that meal: the crunch and the chew, the ginger and the sesame, the kind of thing that feels rooted in the same pantry as everything else I cook but lands lighter on a night when the layers are already heavy enough.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 10 min | Total Time: 25 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 package (about 20) frozen pork or vegetable potstickers
1 tablespoon neutral oil (avocado or vegetable)
4 cups shredded napa cabbage
1 cup shredded purple cabbage
1 cup shredded carrots
3 green onions, thinly sliced
1/2 cup frozen edamame, thawed
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon gochujang
1 tablespoon honey or maple syrup
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated
1 clove garlic, minced

Instructions

Make the dressing. Whisk together soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, gochujang, honey, grated ginger, and garlic in a small bowl until smooth. Set aside.
Cook the potstickers. Heat neutral oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Add potstickers flat-side down in a single layer. Cook 2–3 minutes until the bottoms are golden. Add 1/4 cup water, cover immediately, and steam 4–5 minutes until cooked through. Remove lid and let any remaining water evaporate. Transfer to a plate.
Build the salad base. In a large bowl, combine napa cabbage, purple cabbage, carrots, green onions, edamame, and cilantro. Toss with about two-thirds of the dressing.
Assemble. Arrange the dressed salad on a serving platter or divide among bowls. Nestle the warm potstickers on top.
Finish and serve. Drizzle remaining dressing over the potstickers. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds. Serve immediately while the potstickers are still warm and crisp.

Nutrition (per serving)

Potsticker Salad — The Bowl I Make When the Kitchen Still Feels Like Home