Korean Barbecue Chicken Wings

I tried something new this week — not a recipe but a social experiment. I went to a Korean cultural center in Federal Way, about thirty minutes south of Seattle. The center offers free Korean language classes for heritage speakers (people who have a Korean background but didn't grow up speaking the language), and I found it through a Google search at 11 PM on a Tuesday, the way I find everything: compulsively, in the dark, when I should be sleeping.

The class was on Saturday morning. I drove to Federal Way in the rain, which felt metaphorical (journeying through difficulty toward cultural connection) and also just felt like driving in Seattle in January. The center was in a strip mall next to a Korean grocery and a Korean bakery, which felt like the universe confirming my decision. I parked and sat in my car for the requisite five minutes — the pre-emotional-event car-sitting that has become my ritual — and then went in.

The class had twelve students. Most were Korean-Americans in their twenties and thirties who grew up hearing Korean at home but never became fluent. Two of us were adoptees. The other adoptee was a man named Daniel, early thirties, adopted to a family in Olympia, and when we made eye contact across the room there was an instant recognition — the recognition of two people who are in the same absurd situation, learning a language that should have been their first language, in a strip mall in Federal Way, on a rainy Saturday. We nodded at each other. The nod said everything.

The teacher, a woman named Hyunjung, was patient and kind and spoke in a mix of Korean and English. The class was above my level — they were working on intermediate grammar, and I'm barely through beginner — but I sat in the back and absorbed what I could and wrote everything in my notebook and felt, for the first time since the Korean Student Association in college, like I was in a room full of people who understood the specific thing I am. Not all of them were adoptees, but all of them were Korean people working to claim a language that should have been given to them, and the collective effort of twelve people in a strip mall classroom, learning how to say "I'm hungry" in their ancestral language, was the most beautiful thing I've seen all year.

After class, Daniel and I got lunch at the Korean bakery next door. He told me his story — adopted at age two, single white mother in Olympia, no Korean anything growing up, found Korean food in his late twenties and has been on the same journey I'm on. He said, "People don't get it. They think learning Korean is a hobby. It's not a hobby. It's physical therapy for an amputated identity." I will remember that sentence for the rest of my life. Physical therapy for an amputated identity. That is exactly what this is.

I drove home elated. Not the performative elation of accomplishment but the real elation of connection — of finding people who are doing the same work, carrying the same wound, building the same bridges. I signed up for the class permanently. Every Saturday, 10 AM, Federal Way. The drive is thirty minutes each way and I don't care. I would drive two hours. I would drive five. The room full of heritage speakers learning their language is the closest thing to a community I've found since starting this project, and community is what I've been missing. Cooking alone is transformation. Cooking with context — with a community, with a class, with Daniel and Hyunjung and the other ten people in that strip mall classroom — is belonging.

This week's cooking was celebratory: I made dak doritang — spicy braised chicken, a comfort dish of chicken pieces simmered in a sauce of gochujang, gochugaru, soy sauce, and garlic, with potatoes and onions. It's the kind of one-pot meal that Korean families make on weeknights, hearty and satisfying and the whole apartment smelling like spicy chicken for hours. I ate it feeling less alone than I've felt in months. The Korean class. Daniel. The language. The community. The chicken. Everything converging. Everything building. Week forty-five. January is ending. The building continues.

The dak doritang was a weeknight meal, something I made for myself in my own kitchen — but the Korean barbecue chicken wings I’m sharing here are what I made the following weekend, when the feeling of that strip mall classroom was still warm in my chest and I wanted to cook something I could imagine bringing to people, something worth sharing. After weeks of cooking as a solitary act of transformation, I wanted a dish that felt social — sticky and messy and meant to be eaten with your hands around a table full of others. Here’s how I made them.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 45 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour | Servings: 4

Ingredients

2 lbs chicken wings, split at the joint, tips removed
2 tablespoons gochujang (Korean red pepper paste)
1 tablespoon gochugaru (Korean red pepper flakes)
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon brown sugar
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon neutral oil (vegetable or canola)
2 green onions, thinly sliced, for garnish
1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds, for garnish

Instructions

Make the marinade. In a large bowl, whisk together the gochujang, gochugaru, soy sauce, sesame oil, honey, brown sugar, garlic, ginger, and rice vinegar until smooth and fully combined.
Marinate the wings. Pat the chicken wings dry with paper towels. Add them to the bowl and toss to coat thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or up to overnight for deeper flavor.
Preheat the oven. Heat your oven to 425°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil and set a wire rack on top. Lightly brush the rack with the neutral oil.
Bake the wings. Arrange the wings in a single layer on the prepared rack, shaking off any excess marinade back into the bowl (reserve it). Bake for 25 minutes, then flip the wings.
Glaze and finish. Brush the reserved marinade over the wings. Return to the oven and bake for an additional 15–20 minutes, until the wings are caramelized, slightly charred at the edges, and cooked through (internal temperature 165°F).
Garnish and serve. Transfer to a platter, scatter the sliced green onions and sesame seeds over the top, and serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Korean Barbecue Chicken Wings — The Taste of Belonging