Beat heat with Korean chicken, Japanese salad

Spicy Korean chicken with cabbage salad.Karoline Boehm Goodnick for The Boston Globe

Spicy food makes you sweat like crazy and when your brow cools off, you feel better — and cooler. To that end, this flavor-packed Korean chicken stir-fry is sprinkled with coarse red pepper flakes and served over a colorful, hot, and crunchy bed of chopped red and green cabbage mixed with sesame oil and rice vinegar.

Use some of the chicken in a punched-up version of a classic Japanese sunomono, a refreshing combination of wakame (seaweed) and shredded carrots. This type of seaweed, often found in miso soup, comes dried and pre-cut and is available at Asian and well-stocked markets. When reconstituted in water, the pieces swell to more than five times their size. Serve your salad in a glass bowl or on a glass platter — as the Japanese do — to help you think, and keep, cool.

Shopping list

(For spicy chicken, Japanese salad)

2 pounds boneless chicken thighs

¼ head medium green cabbage

¼ head red cabbage

2 carrots

3 scallions

3 cloves garlic

⅓ bunch garlic chives

1 lemon

Salt and pepper

½ teaspoon sea salt

3 tablespoons dark sesame oil

½ cup unseasoned rice vinegar

3 teaspoons Korean red pepper flakes or
sriracha or chili paste to taste

7 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons brown sugar

½ cup dried Korean or Japanese
seaweed (wakame in Japanese)

2 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon sesame seeds