Kolabi-saengchae (Kohlrabi Salad)

Kohlrabi arrives at the winter market looking like it wandered into the wrong stall, pale green and a little comic, sitting between radish and cabbage. Cook the month you're standing in. In the cold months it is sweet, firm, and cheap, and that is enough reason for a Korean kitchen to make room for it.

My teacher did not teach me kohlrabi; she taught me saengchae (raw seasoned vegetable). Cut the vegetable evenly, salt it only until it relaxes, color it with gochugaru (Korean chili flakes) before the wet seasonings go in, and taste before you add more fish sauce. That lesson belongs to mu-saengchae (radish salad), but the hand is the same here. The new vegetable enters the old grammar.

What this dish asks tonight is not cooking. It asks for a sharp knife and restraint. Kohlrabi is sweeter than Korean radish and firmer under the teeth, so do not bury it under sugar or gochujang. Salt by weight, dress by hand, and give it ten minutes to settle. Then put it beside rice, grilled fish, egg jjim, or a bowl of doenjang-guk, where a cold, crisp banchan does its quiet work.