Vietnamese Chicken and Cabbage Salad

Second Korean class. Hyunjung taught verb conjugations — the difference between formal and informal speech, the way Korean requires you to calibrate your language based on who you're talking to, their age, their status, your relationship. In English, you say "eat" to everyone. In Korean, you might say 먹어 (meogeo) to a friend, 드세요 (deuseyo) to an elder, 잡수세요 (japsusheyo) to a grandparent. Three words for "eat," each encoding a different relationship. The language is a map of social architecture, and studying it is like studying the blueprint of a culture — you see what matters (hierarchy, respect, relationship), what's load-bearing (age, status), and what's ornamental (nothing — in Korean grammar, everything is structural).

Daniel and I have started meeting for coffee after class. He goes to a Korean café near the cultural center — coffee and bungeo-ppang, fish-shaped pastries filled with sweet red bean paste, which Daniel is mildly obsessed with. We talk about adoption, about food, about the specific weirdness of being Korean adults who are learning Korean from scratch. He's further along in the language than I am — he started studying two years ago — but we're at similar places in the food journey. He makes great kimchi. His bulgogi is, he admits, inconsistent. We compare notes like students studying for the same exam, which in a way we are: the exam is identity, and the scoring rubric is something only we can feel.

This week's cooking: I tackled naengmyeon — cold buckwheat noodles, a Korean summer dish that I'm making in February because I found the noodles at H Mart and couldn't wait. Naengmyeon is served in an icy beef broth, topped with sliced cucumber, pear, a boiled egg, and mustard. It's a dish that requires patience: the broth is made from beef brisket simmered for hours, then chilled, then partially frozen so it's slushy when served. The noodles are buckwheat, thin and chewy, with a texture unlike any Western noodle. The combination — ice-cold broth, chewy noodles, crisp cucumber, sweet pear — is startling and refreshing, even in winter. I made it on Wednesday night and ate it shivering slightly, because cold noodles in February in Seattle is a choice, but the dish was so good I didn't care about the shivering. Some things are worth being cold for.

Dr. Yoon was pleased about the Korean class. She said, "Community is the missing piece. You've been doing this alone for almost a year. You need witnesses." Witnesses. The word is precise. I've been cooking and studying and processing alone — in therapy, yes, but therapy is one-on-one, contained. The Korean class is public. It's twelve people watching me mispronounce words and struggle with verb conjugations and be openly, vulnerably, non-fluently Korean. The vulnerability of that — the willingness to be bad at being Korean in front of other Korean people — is a form of courage that I didn't know I had.

At work, the inventory system design is progressing. I presented the preliminary architecture to the team and got positive feedback with some pushback on my approach to data sharding. The pushback was valid — my sharding strategy assumed a growth rate that was optimistic — and I revised it, and the revision was better. This is how I learn: feedback, revision, iteration. At Amazon. In the kitchen. In the Korean class. In therapy. The process is the same everywhere. Build, test, get feedback, revise. The only difference is what you're building: at Amazon, a system; in the kitchen, a meal; in the class, a language; in therapy, a self.

Saturday: Bellevue. I told Karen and David about the Korean class. Karen said, "Oh, that's wonderful! Where is it?" and I told her and she said, "Federal Way. That's quite a drive." It is. I don't care. David said, "Are you going to become fluent?" and I said, "I don't know. I hope so." David nodded — the engineer's nod, the acknowledgment that a goal has been stated and the path to achieving it is long. He said, "You'll get there." Simple. Certain. The way David says everything — with the quiet confidence of a man who has spent his career building things that fly, and who believes, fundamentally, that anything well-engineered will work. He believes I'll get there. I believe I'll get there too. I just don't know where "there" is yet. But I'm driving to Federal Way every Saturday, and the drive is thirty minutes, and the rain is on the windshield, and the road is the point. The road is always the point.

That drive home from Bellevue, something about David’s quiet certainty stayed with me — the idea that the road itself is the work, that you build toward something without always knowing what it is. I wanted to cook something that felt like that: layered, considered, a little unfamiliar but not difficult. This Vietnamese chicken and cabbage salad has been in my rotation for a while now, and it always feels like the right thing to make when I need to do something with my hands that asks just enough of me. Here’s how I put it together.

Prep Time: 25 min | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 1 1/2 lbs)
4 cups napa cabbage, very thinly sliced
1 cup red cabbage, very thinly sliced
1 large carrot, julienned or coarsely grated
1/2 English cucumber, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
1/2 cup fresh mint leaves, torn
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves
1/4 cup fresh Thai basil leaves (or regular basil)
3 green onions, thinly sliced on the bias
1/3 cup roasted, salted peanuts, roughly chopped
2 tbsp fried shallots (store-bought or homemade)
For the dressing:
3 tbsp fish sauce
3 tbsp fresh lime juice (about 2 limes)
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 1/2 tbsp granulated sugar
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1 fresh red chili or 1/2 tsp chili flakes, to taste
1 tsp sesame oil

Instructions

Poach the chicken. Place chicken breasts in a small saucepan and cover with cold water by an inch. Add a pinch of salt. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat, then reduce heat to low, cover, and cook 15–18 minutes until cooked through. Transfer to a plate to cool completely, then shred by hand into thin, irregular pieces. Do not rush this — even shreds hold dressing better than chunks.
Make the dressing. Whisk together fish sauce, lime juice, rice vinegar, and sugar until sugar fully dissolves. Stir in garlic, chili, and sesame oil. Taste and adjust — it should be bright, salty, and slightly sweet, with heat at the back. Set aside for at least 10 minutes to let the garlic mellow.
Prepare the vegetables. Combine napa cabbage, red cabbage, carrot, and cucumber in a large bowl. Toss lightly to distribute. The thin, uniform slicing matters here: this is a dish where precision reads on the palate.
Dress and rest. Add the shredded chicken to the vegetables. Pour two-thirds of the dressing over the salad and toss well. Let stand 5 minutes — the cabbage will begin to soften slightly and absorb flavor. Taste, then add more dressing as needed.
Finish and serve. Just before serving, fold in the mint, cilantro, basil, and green onions. Transfer to a serving platter or individual bowls. Top with peanuts and fried shallots. Serve immediately while the herbs are bright and the cabbage still has some crunch.

Nutrition (per serving)

Vietnamese Chicken and Cabbage Salad — Cold, Careful, and Worth the Shivering