Mongolian Beef and Broccoli

I've started cooking for other people regularly now, and the shift from cooking-for-one to cooking-for-community has changed the food itself. When I cook alone, I optimize for flavor and efficiency — the fastest path to a good meal. When I cook for others, I think about presentation, about variety, about the experience of sitting at a table and being served. The food becomes more generous. More banchan. More color. More dishes that require effort I wouldn't expend for just myself. The generosity of cooking for others has made me a better cook, which is a lesson I probably should have learned earlier but didn't because I spent twenty-three years not knowing how to cook for anyone, including myself.

This week I hosted Daniel for dinner. He drove up from Federal Way after Korean class, and I made a full spread: galbi (marinated overnight), japchae, kimchi jjigae, three banchan (kkakdugi, bean sprout namul, spinach namul), and rice. Daniel walked in and said, "This smells like my fantasy of a Korean home." I said, "Mine too." We looked at each other and laughed, because we're both adoptees building fantasy Korean homes from YouTube and H Mart and cooking classes, and the absurdity is something only another adoptee can fully appreciate.

Over dinner, Daniel told me he's decided to go to Korea. He booked a flight for September — three weeks in Seoul and Busan. He asked if I wanted to come. The question hit me like a wave. Korea. Three weeks. Walking the streets where I was born, eating the food I've been teaching myself, hearing the language I'm learning. The thought made me dizzy. I said, "I can't. Not yet." He said, "Why?" I said, "I'm not ready." He said, "You've been ready since you made your first kimchi. You just don't know it yet." Daniel is annoyingly insightful for a man who once told me he ate nothing but chicken nuggets until he was thirty.

I told Dr. Yoon about Daniel's invitation. She said, "What would it mean to go?" I said, "Everything. And that's why I can't." She said, "Unpack 'everything.'" So I did: going to Korea means standing in the country where I was born and given away. It means walking through Seoul knowing that somewhere in this city, twenty-three years ago, a seventeen-year-old girl carried me to a building and left me. It means eating food that tastes like the food I've been making in my Capitol Hill kitchen, but made by Korean hands in Korean kitchens, and the gap between my version and the real thing might be beautiful or might be devastating. It means seeing Korean people — Korean families, Korean mothers and daughters — everywhere, and being both of them and neither of them. Dr. Yoon listened. Then she said, "It also means being Korean in Korea. Which you've never been." That sentence. Being Korean in Korea. The simplest, most loaded sentence anyone has ever said to me.

I made songpyeon this week — Korean rice cakes filled with sesame seeds and honey, traditionally made for Chuseok (Korean harvest festival). It's not Chuseok season but I wanted to practice. The rice cakes are shaped by hand — half-moon shapes, pinched closed — and steamed on a bed of pine needles (I used pine extract because I don't have access to pine needles in Capitol Hill). The finished songpyeon are beautiful: smooth, colorful (I tinted some with mugwort powder for green), filled with sweet sesame. I ate them thinking about Chuseok, about Korean families gathered around tables, making songpyeon together the way American families make Christmas cookies. Another holiday I missed. Another tradition I'm reclaiming, off-season, alone in my kitchen, with pine extract instead of pine needles.

Saturday: Bellevue. I didn't bring Korean food this week — I brought myself, and my questions, and a tiredness that Karen noticed immediately. "You look worn out, honey." I am. The Korea question is wearing me out. The should-I-go, can-I-go, what-will-it-mean-if-I-go. I ate Karen's pot roast and said nothing about Korea and everything was on the surface and nothing was, and I drove home in the rain and made kimchi fried rice and went to bed early and dreamed about an airport I've never been to, in a country I've never visited, where a woman I've never met was waiting at the gate.

The galbi I made for Daniel took overnight marinating and every pan I own, and I wouldn’t change a thing about it — but on the nights when I’m cooking for myself and still want that same sweet-savory depth, the same tender beef in a glossy, garlicky sauce, Mongolian beef is what I reach for. It doesn’t require twenty-three years of learning or a three-week flight to Seoul; it just requires a hot pan, a handful of pantry staples, and the same generosity I’m learning to extend to myself. If the fantasy Korean home I’m building has a weeknight, this is what’s on the table.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 15 min | Total Time: 30 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs flank steak, thinly sliced against the grain
3 tablespoons cornstarch, divided
3 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
4 cups broccoli florets
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated
1/2 cup low-sodium soy sauce
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
3 green onions, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon sesame seeds, for garnish
Steamed white rice, for serving

Instructions

Coat the beef. Pat the sliced flank steak dry with paper towels. Toss with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch until evenly coated. Set aside for 10 minutes while you prep the remaining ingredients.
Make the sauce. In a small bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, brown sugar, water, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and red pepper flakes (if using). Stir in the remaining 1 tablespoon cornstarch until fully dissolved. Set aside.
Sear the beef. Heat 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil in a large skillet or wok over high heat until shimmering. Working in two batches to avoid crowding, sear the beef for 1–2 minutes per side until browned and just cooked through. Transfer to a plate and repeat with remaining beef.
Cook the broccoli. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon oil to the same pan. Add broccoli florets and stir-fry over high heat for 3–4 minutes until bright green and just tender-crisp. Add the garlic and ginger and cook for 30 seconds until fragrant.
Bring it together. Return the beef to the pan. Pour the sauce over everything and toss to coat. Cook for 1–2 minutes, stirring constantly, until the sauce thickens into a glossy glaze that clings to the beef and broccoli.
Serve. Spoon over steamed white rice. Garnish with sliced green onions and sesame seeds. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Mongolian Beef and Broccoli — A Table Set for Two, a Fantasy Made Real