Gyoza Salad

Japanese people love cabbage, and it's used in everything from cooked dishes to pickles to salads. This recipe started from a technique I saw on TV for blanching raw cabbage with boiling water as a method for quick pickling it. The result is similar to massaging the cabbage with salt, but it has the added benefits of making the green color pop while reducing raw cabbage's harsh, mustardy flavor.

I'd initially planned to make something much simpler with this, but we were having Korean BBQ for dinner, and I had the idea of turning this into a banchan seasoned with sesame oil and garlic. After fiddling with it a bit, I realized it tasted more like Gyoza than anything else... and so gyoza salad was born.