Category: Kimchi

Confessions of a Kimchi Craver
There was a brief stretch in my first month in Korea when I stopped eating kimchi. I blame culture shock.
I had not yet grown my Asian palate and had made the expat’s error of expecting certain colours and shapes to correspond to familiar tastes. I spent far too much time pondering the explosive flavours in my mouth. This was not a side dish to be gastronomically deconstructed – not for beginners anyway. Some of the best advice that fellow expats gave me was: “Just eat it, regularly, and you will start to crave it.”
I followed this seemingly-absurd advice and began to see why fermented foods were known to be addictive. It was only later, after the cravings took hold, that I allowed myself to appreciate the variety of flavours in the many kinds of kimchi on the Korean table.
I was never more ready, then, for the annual Kimchi Festival in Gwangju. Never before had I been able to so appreciate this superfood, to seek out my favourite colours and textures, and to order three different kimchi-filled lunches.
I was sorry to have missed the kimchi-making workshop, in which visitors learn to make kimchi and take home their handiwork, as well as the scavenger hunt held by the Gwangju blog each year. I spent my day at the festival sampling kimchi of every variety, and squeezing in among the connoisseurs at popular stalls.
All the lip-smacking, onomatopoiec muttering and nodding reminded me of a wine tasting. There was also a sophisticated craftsmanship being appreciated and celebrated. When I walked through the stalls selling kimchi ingredients, however, I spotted the difference. This was a craft intended to be accessible to all kitchen-commanders, while still preserving the quality of the final product.
The process is celebrated as much as the result, as many an ajumma (아줌마) produced batch after batch on site. Rubber gloves wrist-deep in pools of bright red chili paste (고추장) made for a gory image reminiscent of a butcher’s block. Kimchi never was for the faint of heart.
The Gwangju Kimchi Culture Festival runs annually in October. After filling your belly, you can check out the kimchi museum and steal a hug from a giant fluffy cabbage – if you can compete with crowds of adoring fans.

October 21, 2013
Recipe: Kale Kimchi
Recently, I joined a CSA (community-supported agriculture) farm affiliated with our local community college. Our CSA promises, “a share of whatever is ripe and ready to eat.”
Much ado about kale? Try turning it into a very spicy, garlicky kimchi. (Tammy Quackenbush photo)
That share recently included a small bunch of kale. Hubby is not a fan of kale, and I have never cooked with it before. So I was at a loss as to what I could do with it — really at a loss.
Initially, I thought I would make kale chips with it, given how ridiculously expensive store-bought preparations are compared with the simplicity of the recipe. To make kale chips, you remove the stem, chop the leaves into large bite-sized pieces, smear them with a flavored paste then dry the pieces in a food dehydrator or at very low heat in an oven.
However, I didn’t have all the ingredients in my pantry for the several Asian- and Korean-inspired kale chip recipes I found. For the paste, one recipe called for almond butter and another, tahini.
Those aren’t in my well-stocked Korean-style pantry. So I decided to use ingredients from such a pantry to make kale 김치 kimchi.
The following recipe for kale kimchi was adapted from the Week of Menus blog. Mostly, I cut the recipe in half, because my CSA kale bounty wasn’t as large as called for in the original recipe.
Don’t like the taste or texture of kale? The bold spiciness and garlic of this recipe might cultivate a kale craving. And salivating over this “superstar vegetable” is a good thing, according to dietician Kathleen Zelman:
One cup of chopped kale contains 33 calories and 9% of the daily value of calcium, 206% of vitamin A, 134% of vitamin C, and a whopping 684% of vitamin K. It is also a good source of minerals copper, potassium, iron, manganese, and phosphorus.

Kale kimchi
by Week of Menus
Makes about 2 cups of kimchi
1 bunch kale
1/4 cup fish sauce (or 1/8 cup fish sauce and 1/8 cup soy sauce)
1/8 cup mochiko (“sweet” flour from cooked sticky rice)
3/4 cups water
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons 고추가루 gochugaru (Korean red chili powder) (or 2–2.5 tablespoons of cayenne powder)
1/8 cup garlic, finely chopped
Wash the kale, trim the stems to the leaves and chop the leaves into bite-sized pieces.
Place the washed, chopped kale in a large bowl. Drizzle fish sauce over the leaves and toss them to lightly coat them with sauce. Set aside for about 45 minutes to allow the kale to wilt.
While the kale is softening, add rice powder, water and sugar to a small sauce pan over medium-high heat. Whisk and stir constantly, until mixture begins to thicken and bubble. Continue whisking for another minute after the bubbles form. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.
After kale has rested in the fish sauce and the rice flour mixture cools to barely warm, carefully drain the fish sauce in the bottom of the kale bowl into the rice flour mixture.
Finely chop a handful of garlic cloves by hand or in a food processor.
To rice flour mixture, mix gochugaru and finely chopped garlic, making a red paste. Mixture should taste salty, so add a bit more fish sauce, if necessary.
Using a spatula, mix the red paste with the kale, using a gentle folding motion, until all leaves are coated.
Pack the kale kimchi into a small wide-mouthed jar. Do not overstuff it; leave about 1/4 inch of space at the top for fermentation.
Leave the jar on the counter for about two hours.
Refrigerate the jarred kimchi. Periodically taste-test it for the level of fermentation preferred. Ours was ready in about three days.
August 23, 2013
Tuna Kimchi Jjigae
This has been my go-to kimchi jjigage recipe for more than 10 years. (Tammy Quackenbush photo)

Northern Californian winters are all about cold dampness — rain, lots of rain. For me, the only purpose for winter is to get the full benefit of a hot bowl of 김치찌개 kimchi jjigae, or kimchi stew. That’s a dish Koreans commonly make to finish off a jar of kimchi that has become too sour and mostly “juice,” the tangy, spicy, flavorful remnant of pickling.
Kimchi jjigae with 돼지고기 dwaegi gogi (pork), Spam processed ham or 두부 dubu (tofu), are common variations of the dish. Avoiding pork for religious reasons, I was pleased to find 참치김치찌개 chamchi kimchi jjigae, or kimchi stew with tuna, on the menu of a restaurant near Kangwon National University in Chuncheon, a lakeside city in the mountains northeast of Seoul. I first tasted that version in the mid-’90s and have been making it ever since.
Korean grocery stores sell canned tuna specially made for kimchi jjigae, marinated in 고추장 gochujang (Korean red pepper paste). Because tuna is usually chunk light tuna, which has a smell and flavor, albacore canned tuna is my tuna of choice. (But I may have to reconsider after reading this Epicurious article about mercury in albacore.)
Since most canned tuna isn’t packed in gochujang, I add gochujang or 고추가루gochugaru (Korean red pepper flakes or powder) to the stew. Gochujang will make the stew thicker; gochugaru, thinner.
A tasty low-fat version of this Korean classic
April 12, 2011
Koreamerican creation: Kimchi buffalo hot dog
Napa Valley chef Hector Marroquin topped his buffalo hot dog with his "kimchi 3.0," on a whole wheat bun slathered with Dijon mustard. I included sweet potato fries to complement the spicy kimchi. (Photo by Tammy Quackenbush)
There’s arguably no food more recognizably Korean than spicy cabbage kimchi. But what is quintessentially American? Few meats are more so than bison. Hunted nearly to extinction in the 19th century, the American buffalo was brought back from the brink of extinction to such abundance that it is becoming more common on American dinner tables via dedicated conservation.
Chef Hector Marroquin of the Pupusa Griddle booth at the St. Helena Farmers Market in Napa Valley wanted to expand kimchi creations beyond his kalbi-style short ribs topped with kimchi made with a blend of local peppers.
Inspired by a picture of my husband eating a hot dog topped with kimchi, Marroquin “koreafornianized” the street food favorite hot dog topped with sauerkraut. He put a Native American spin on it by replacing the beef Kosher dog with a buffalo dog and swapping the kraut for kimchi. The spicy, garlic-forward tang complements the bold buffalo flavor.
Marroquin’s buffalo kimchi dog was a quick seller at the farmer’s market.
“The customers loved it, and did not mind paying $7 for a buffalo kimchi dog on french,” Marroquin told me.
Demand for the Kimchi buffalo hot dogs consistently outlasted the supply.
But he ran into a serious problem making it a permanent feature on the menu.
Primarily, it was finding grass-fed, humanely raised buffalo hot dogs. The most promising source was the company who supplies the dogs exclusively to Whole Foods Market. Having to pay retail at $8.99/lb. took a big bite out of his profit margin.
Despite the setbacks, Marroquin featured the franks on the menu for several weeks, running out every time he offered them on the menu.
February 1, 2011
Making kimchi with California ingredients
This video was filmed in the hills of Lake County California, just north of Napa Valley to make a point about “regionalizing,” or adapting recipes for local ingredients. “Regionalizing” is a trend in culinary circles. Fermented foods are becoming popular for their health-promoting benefits.
Baechu kimchi, the commonly recognized Korean red-pepper spiced picked cabbage side dish, brings the growing intrigue of Korean food together with pickling. This video shows how you can substitute commonly available chilis for Korean ones to achieve the desired spiciness and flavor.
December 23, 2010
Faster fermentation: Does kimchi primed make kimchi before its time?
Do you jump-start the kimchi or let nature take its course? The choice is yours. (Photo by Jeff Quackenbush)
Chef Hector Marroquin of Pupusa Griddle in St. Helena, Calif., continues to perfect his kimchi recipe.
He sent me this message on Sept. 13 from Facebook:
I made about three gallons of kimchi…. I used about a cup of the older kimchi juice I had as a starter. I was surprised how quickly the fermentation process started.
Then he asked me an interesting question — interesting to me anyway:
Have you ever seen anybody use old kimchi juice as a starter?
If you save the juice from your Lactobacillus-fermented kimchi, you can either make it into stew or save a cup or two to jump start your next batch. (Photo by Jeff Quackenbush)
I told him that natural-foods advocates often use starters. Koreans often use the leftover kimchi to make 김치 찌개 kimchi jjigae, or kimchi stew, and start the pickling process from scratch.
The Weston Price Foundation is an American nonprofit organization that advocates the nutritional superiority of natural foods and old-fashioned cooking and preservation methods. That includes naturally fermented foods such as kimchi, pickles, sauerkraut and yogurt. The foundation’s 1999 slow-food classic Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats is in my library.
Chef Marroquin’s question was well-timed. The Washington Post (free subscription only) in a Sept. 14 article called “Fermentation: A wild way to make food come to life” detailed ways to expedite vegetable fermentation (emphasis added):
Depending on your time and temperament, there are three ways to go about it. Sealing the food in a simple saltwater brine is the most traditional method; the wait for the finished product is usually several weeks. Jump-starting the process with whey from a dairy product, or liquid from any live ferment, can produce the desired result within several days. Powdered starters also do the trick.
How will using a “liquid from any live ferment” such as kimchi juice effect the final product?
I asked Master Food Preserver Delilah Snell of Project Small how such liquid starter as kimchi juice could affect fermentation.
“I think using the old juice adds a little more flavor and it has more of the ‘good bacteria,’” she wrote. “Starting from scratch, you have to make your own [good bacteria].”
Use of a starter also helps control the sourness of fermentation, she added.
If you like a sour, more developed kimchi, start the new batch with some juice from a prior pickling. Using a starter may also help create a more consistent kimchi more quickly, which is crucial for a restaurant or catering business.
However, if you prefer a fresher, more subtle kimchi, start each batch from scratch.
Leo Tolstoy said, “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.” He could have been talking about the art of making kimchi, because patience and time are keys to the good stuff.
September 17, 2010
Interview with Delilah Snell of Project Small on Kimchi-making
Delilah Snell, a master food preserver (MFP), taught a class in kimchi-making at the Eat Real Festival in Oakland, Calif., on Aug. 29. [See the Sept. 2 post “Korean cuisine rolls into Eat Real Festival 2010, San Francisco Bay area.”]
Delilah Snell quickly chops some garlic and ginger for her kimchi demonstration.
At a stage in the “urban homesteading zone,” Snell spent 19 minutes going through the ingredients and steps in making the commonly recognized spicy Nappa cabbage kimchi (배추 김치 baechu kimchi). She also took questions from an audience of more than 100, several of which vied for a chance to help her with the demonstration.
Snell kindly answered a few questions via email about herself and her passion for traditional cooking methods.
What is the name of your store? What do you sell there?
My store is The Road Less Traveled, an eco-friendly store selling green, natural, organic and fair-trade products in Orange County [Santa Ana] for almost five years. We also teach a number of classes there.
What kind of culinary training led you to teaching food preservation?
I have always been into food and gardening. [I] started a non-pro several years ago, starting [at] farmers markets, food gardens, etc. in my area. I just always wanted to know how to preserve for the store, but I ended up falling in love with all sorts of preservation after becoming going through the MFP program.
How long have you been teaching classes on food preservation?
Over a year.
You noticed there were more than 100 people there at Eat Real Festival to hear your presentation on making kimchi. What did you think of that?
I loved and was so excited and happy to see people interested. It give me faith in the future of food. I was a little shocked though — didn’t expect so many!
Why are Americans “scared” of traditional fermented foods? This goes into what what you brought up during the lecture: people — here at least — are so removed [from] how to do things again — plus bombarded by marketing telling you that you don’t need to so you can by their “crap.” You mentioned the kimchi turning sour — and, yes, I agree [it’s] totally fine and normal to eat. But from my perspective, I am teaching safety, and I just want to make sure that people don’t just leave it to rot thinking, “It’s OK if it is sour.” This [food safety], in my mind, is the baby-step for them to start exploring.
During the questions after the demonstration, someone in the audience asked her, “If you let it go sour, is it dangerous, or is it a flavor issue.”
“It went bad, so you don’t want to eat it,” Snell answered
I piped in at that point that Koreans often use sour kimchi to make a common stew called 김치찌개 kimchi jjigae.
She responded, “If it’s gone bad, you may have created an environment where other bacteria can come in.”
The interchange came in the last couple of minutes of her allotted time, so we had to pick up the discussion privately.
Why are people more interested in these traditional foods?
[The] local/DIY [do-it-yourself]/anti-big-ag[riculture] movement is and has been growing. People are taking food and food manipulation into their own hands as a form of self-empowerment.
Do you see a difference between Northern California and Southern California in regard to the interest in traditional cooking methods?
North California was so responsive. Here in South California[, it] might be a little less. But L.A. is growing. The size of the region is a problem, though, as far as people going to a lecture in this area.
What is your favorite meal to eat with kimchi?
The Kogi Truck success has been a real motivation. They use kimchi in their tacos and burritos. Being half-Mexican, this appeals to me — the crossing of cultures!
September 5, 2010
Korean cuisine rolls into Eat Real Festival 2010, San Francisco Bay area
Chef Gordon Xiao of Ark Chinese Restaurant in Alameda making pulled noodles. (Photo by Jeff Quackenbush)
Among the more than 80 caterers, mobile and brick-and-mortar restaurants, and food-related vendors at the second annual Eat Real Festival in the San Francisco Bay area were two Korean “taco trucks,” a nouveau hanshik restaurant, a ramen restaurant serving kimchi and a food-preservation specialist teaching how to pickle the popular version of it.
Did I mention the live demonstration of making Chinese pulled noodles (lai min)?
Intensely craving some Korean yumminess, I attended the festival, held Aug. 27 to 29 at Jack London Square in Oakland, Calif., to snack on selections from Santa Clara-based MoGo BBQ and Seoul on Wheels of Emeryville. Reviews of those rolling restaurants will be posted in coming days.
Seoul on Wheels parked under the palms of Jack London Square in Oakland, Calif. (Photo by Jeff Quackenbush)
One newcomer to Korean food took celebrity chef Guy Fieri's advise to pick the longest line for the best food, which led him to Seoul on Wheels. (Photo by Jeff Quackenbush)
San Francisco neo-Korean restaurant Namu also was was among the “street food” vendors, but I already had sampled Namu’s Korean tacos at the restaurant’s stall at the San Francisco Ferry Building.
Jack Birdsall of SF Weekly called this year’s Eat Real Festival, a “county fair in a parallel universe.” Giving that vibe to the festival were food-making performances, classes and contests.
I attended the festival on Aug. 29 also to take in the noodle-pulling demonstration and kimchi-making class. Chef Gordon Xiao of Ark Chinese Restaurant in Alameda showed how fresh dough is kneaded, rolled, twisted in mid-air, stretched, slapped on the table and pulled to make noodles of various thicknesses. He said it took him two years to learn the technique.
Chef Xiao was a little concerned that the watermelon was "too ripe" for carving. (Photo by Jeff Quackenbush)
Xiao also showed the Thai melon carving technique, taking 10 minutes to show how to carve a flower in the side of a watermelon rather than the few minutes in which it is normally completed. He finished the demonstration time with a quick sculpting of a carrot into a bird.
At a stage in the “urban homesteading zone,” Delilah Snell of Project Small spent 19 minutes going through the ingredients and steps in making the commonly recognized spicy Nappa cabbage kimchi (called baechu kimchi in Korean). In highlighting the natural Lactobacillus fermentation that goes into making kimchi, sauerkraut and other pickled foods of simpler times, she had an appropriate backdrop, a miniature rough-hewn log cabin with a grassy sod roof.
Delilah Snell shows a small finished batch of kimchi. (Photo by Jeff Quackenbush)
During the question-and-answer period, Snell and I had a minor disagreement over what to do with “old” kimchi. I noted that Koreans commonly use it to make kimchi stew (김치찌개 kimchi jjigae), but she suggested that kimchi more than a few months old could be unhealthful.
September 3, 2010
Second interview with Pupusa Griddle: Chef Hector’s kimchi 2.0

This is the second interview-style video we filmed outdoors. The first one — about The Smoked Olive — was recorded earlier the same May 2010 day at the same farmer’s market. (We’ll be posting that interview in the near future.)
The Smoked Olive interview grew out of scouting the market for background video. We were visiting St. Helena Farmer’s Market because Pupusa Griddle Catering and Napa Valley Chef Catering’s Hector Marroquin was introducing a new formulation for kimchi to go with Central American and Caribbean favorites. (If you want to check out my original interview with Chef Marroquin, it’s posted on YouTube as well.)
Normally, we record our videos indoors, where we have much more control over the environment. Recording video outdoors is a challenge, since we do not have a crew to help us. It was just my husband controlling the camera and lighting. Unlike the foggy, shaded conditions for The Smoked Olive interview, this one was in direct sunlight, which casts dark shadows on faces. I was in front of the camera interviewing chef Hector.
To control harsh shadows in direct sunlight the videographer needs to have a very bright light, which is expensive and cumbersome for an unobtrusive video rig, or a reflector to bounce sunlight to light the harsh shadows on faces.
If we had another person we could also use a diffuser, a partially transparent cloth that eliminates the harsh shadows on subjects while still allowing the Sun to light the scene. However, unless the shot is tightly cropped to the head and shoulders of the subject or subjects, it can be difficult to keep such a diffuser out of view in the recording.
So we used a collapsible Lastolite handheld reflector. It has silver and gold-and-silver sides. Silver or white reflectors are best for shade or overcast days to keep the color tones toward the bluish side of the visible spectrum for correction en masse in postproduction. However, in direct sunlight, the warm golden reflector side worked well on chef Hector and me.
Yet, highly reflective materials such as metallic fabric on these reflectors has to be used with caution to prevent blinding or excessive squinting. Jeff has found success in standing 15 to 20 feet away at a 45-degree angle between the reflector and the camera. That allows good profile lighting without reflecting bright light directly into the eyes of the subject.
All that work for a two and a half minute video.
If you would like to buy a hoodie similar to the one I’m wearing in this video, you can purchase it from the civil rights group Liberty in North Korea. It appears they have run out of black hoodies but they are currently selling a grey version of the same hoodie.
Finding appropriate music for our videos has been a struggle in the past but Jamendo has made that process much easier. This time, we found a song is called “Platanote” by Tunacka from their album Ensarada. Tunacka are from Venenzuela and you can find other songs by this artist on Jamendo as well. It has become our place to find creative commons, royalty free music.
May 28, 2010
ZenKimchi via Amateur Gourmet: 6 Strange Things I Put Kimchi In
I wrote a guest post for the Amateur Gourmet’s new community blog. Check it out.
This isn’t the first time Adam Roberts and I have crossed paths. Way back, I made a tribute post to his comic book send ups, called “The Amateur Kimchi,” and it got a little bit noticed.
April 9, 2010