Kimchi is a delicious and beneficial dish that is synonymous with Korea and Korean culture. As the favourite 반찬 (side dish) of many, anyone looking to learn anything about Korea and its people should definitely give kimchi making a try!
As well as being an important cultural symbol, kimchi is also incredibly good for you and delicious paired with almost anything. In this blog post, I will be sharing with you my super simple cucumber kimchi recipe - perfect for a refreshing summer hit of spice.
Side note: There are a couple of kinds of cucumber kimchi - 오이 소박이 김치 (Oi Sobagi Kimchi) and 오이 김치 (Oi Kimchi). The first kind - 오이 소박이 김치 is stuffed cucumber kimchi which uses small pickling cucumbers. 오이 김치 is simply cucumber kimchi which uses standard cucumbers cut into long thin strips.
When making kimchi I tend to use a standard vegetarian kimchi base that I can add to many different vegetables. In some cases, especially when trying a new type of kimchi, I will follow traditional recipes and tweak them to my tastes. Though I am not vegetarian, I have not quite gotten used to the taste of fish sauce yet, so I prefer to leave it out of my kimchi until I can figure out how restaurants make it taste so good! This recipe also uses my standard kimchi base so feel free to use this for all manner of veggies - whatever takes your fancy.
Ingredients:
2 Cucumbers
2 tbsp Rock Salt
2 tbsp Glutinous Rice Flour (or plain flour)
1 tbsp Veg stock (or 1 stock cube)
1.5 cups Water
1 Onion
10 Cloves of Garlic
6 Spring Onions (scallions)
1 tbsp Sugar
0.5 - 1 cup 고추가루 (Korean chilli flakes) *less is definitely more with cucumber!
Method:
As cucumber is primarily made of water and isn't too tough I make the porridge base for the kimchi before salting the cucumber as I don't let the cucumber salt for too long. With tougher vegetables like cabbage, carrots, onions... pretty much anything that isn't cucumber I would salt the vegetables first!
Making the Porridge:
Add the glutinous rice (or other) flour into a saucepan with your vegetable stock and the 1.5 cups of water over low heat, stirring constantly.
The mixture will be very thin at first, but it will soon thicken. When the mixture reaches a porridge consistency ( I usually find about a minute or two) take it off the heat, give it a good final stir to make sure there are no lumps and leave it to cool thoroughly
While the mixture is cooling it is time to salt our cucumber.
Preparing the Cucumber:
Cut your cucumber into long thin(ish) strips about 1cm wide by 8cm long - about half lengths of the cucumber but the size is completely down to preference.
In a large bowl or container, cover the cucumber with the 2 tbsp of rock salt, making sure to mix the cucumber thoroughly to ensure it is well coated.
Leave the cucumber to rest for about 30 minutes to an hour.
When you return to your cucumber you will find liquid at the bottom of the container. This is water that has been drawn from the cucumber. Rince the cucumber thoroughly to remove the salty water.
*I find that the cucumber really takes on the salty water so I don't add any salt, other than that present in the veg stock, to my kimchi paste. If I were using this base for another vegetable I would also add some soy sauce in the later stages.*
Making the Kimchi Paste:
Combine the onion - cut into chunks, the 10 garlic cloves, 1 tbsp sugar and the porridge mixture into a food processor and blend until you have a smooth paste.
If you want to branch out and add more ingredients here I would recommend finely sliced carrots, Asian chives or onion if you like particularly fiery kimchi! *This is also where I would add 1 tbsp soy sauce*
To the paste, now add your 고추가루 and your spring onions, chopped into 2cm long pieces.
Mix thoroughly with a spoon (don't blend) and give it a taste.
Making the Kimchi:
All that is left now is to make sure each piece of cucumber is fully coated in your kimchi paste (The messier the better!) and placed into an airtight container. I try and pack as much of the paste into the container as possible, but should you have any leftovers you can save it to mix with rice etc for a nice spicy dinner.
Leave the kimchi at room temp for about a day - with other vegetables I leave it 3 days, but cucumber doesn't have as long of a shelf life.
After it has been left at room temp, store your kimchi in the fridge and enjoy for the next couple of weeks!
There you have it - I hope you love cucumber kimchi as much as I do, this was the first kimchi I ever made so it holds a special place in my heart.
Let me know if you've given this recipe a try and how you'd edit it to suit your tastes!
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