Cilantro Kimchi: A Forgotten Korean Recipe with Deep Roots
You’ve probably heard the claim: Koreans don’t eat cilantro. Many food blogs repeat it like gospel. They say cilantro—also known as coriander—has no place in Korean cuisine.
But what if that’s not true?
The Hidden History of Cilantro in Korean Food
Let’s look north. In North Korea’s Hwanghae Province, there’s a traditional Korean recipe known as gosu kimchi (고수김치). “Gosu” is the Korean word for cilantro. This dish features fresh cilantro fermented with radish and spices—just like other kimchi. That’s right: cilantro kimchi exists and it’s Korean.
Before the Border Split
Before 1953, Kaesong was part of South Korea’s Gyeonggi Province. After the Korean War, it became part of North Korea. Kaesong is famous for its cuisine. It was even the capital of Korea during the Goryeo Dynasty.
Food from Kaesong—including cilantro recipes—faded from view after the war. Much of North Korea’s food culture remains undocumented or hard to access.
Refugees Remember Cilantro Kimchi
Joanne Choi, a Korean-American blogger, shared her father’s memories of cilantro-rich dishes from Kaesong. She called cilantro “comfort food” for him—something he missed deeply. Sadly, she couldn’t find any cookbooks or recipes from that region, even in Korean bookstores.
Clues from North Korean Tours
In 2008, a travel blogger visited Kaesong and noticed something surprising: cilantro on the table. It stood out as unusual compared to food in the South. That detail backs up claims of cilantro being part of the northern diet.
South Korean Buddhist Temples Keep the Tradition Alive
Cilantro hasn’t disappeared entirely. In South Korea, Buddhist temple cuisine preserves many old recipes. At Sanchon, a famous temple restaurant in Seoul, cilantro is praised for enhancing flavor—especially with meat-free dishes.
The Language Tells a Story
Here’s another clue: Koreans use the native word gosu for cilantro. They didn’t borrow the word from English or Chinese. That suggests it’s not new—it’s been on the peninsula for a long time.
Where This Cilantro Kimchi Recipe Comes From
This version of gosu kimchi comes from a North Korean source—yes, really. The original website is blocked in South Korea, but I found the recipe through archived content and compared it to a South Korean version: Gypsy’s Gosu Kimchi.
Only the North Korean version provided detailed measurements. That’s what I based this recipe on.
Zucchini are coming into season in California now, and I received a medium-sized one in my community-supported agriculture package last week.
I could have again made 호박전 hobak jeon (zucchini pancake), which is always tasty. Another option was 궁중 떡볶이gungjung tteokbokki, the royal ancestor of the spicy, warm 떡볶이tteokbokki (rice cake stew).
Yet hobak bokkeum is a simple dish and once you make it, you can either serve it on the spot in banchan form, or you can set it aside and put it into your bibimbap.
The zucchini I used here was a little fat for bibimbap but it work well as a typical American side dish.
Hobak bokkeum 호박볶음
1 medium zucchini (about 10–12 ounces) 1 tablespoon grapeseed, rice bran or high-heat oil (recommend: non-GMO) 2 teaspoons fish sauce 2 garlic cloves, minced 1 scallion, finely chopped 2 tablespoons water 1 teaspoon sesame oil 1 teaspoon sesame seeds (optional)
Directions
1. Slice zucchini thin.
2. Heat a pan with the grapeseed oil over medium high heat.
3. Mix the remaining ingredients in a small bowl, creating a sauce.
4. Add the zucchini to the skillet, and cook for one to two minutes.
5. Add the sauce and cook for one to two more minutes, stirring well until the zucchini is softened and turns translucent.
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.
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.
Many keep some cans of tuna in the pantry as an inexpensive source of protein. But for a number of Americans, the only purpose for canned tuna is tuna salad or cat food.
Veer from the deep-rutted tuna salad trail with this easy recipe for 참치전 chamchi jeon. These little, two-bite-sized tuna cakes are seasoned simply with salt, pepper, onion and a little garlic. That helps them pair well with bolder, spicier main dishes or kimchi banchan (pickled vegetable side dishes).
I used common canned tuna in my version of this recipe. However, if you are able to get your hands on the Korean canned tuna commonly sold for making kimchi jjigae, use it. It’s pre-marinaded in spicy gochujang and will add some spice and excitement to your tuna cakes.
If you want to eat them western style, you can serve them with tartar sauce, spicy mayonnaise or tzatziki. I served them with a couple of Korean dipping sauces: vinegar spicy pepper sauce (식초 고추장 shikcho gochujang) and vinegar soy sauce (초간장 cho ganjang).
Adzuki are small red beans commonly used in Korean, Japanese and Chinese confections. Called 팥 pat in Korean, these beans have a natural sweetness uncommon in legumes. Added sugar or honey during boiling to make the bean paste accentuates the sweetness for use in a number of East Asian desserts.
Based on archaeological findings, Asians have been cooking adzuki beans since 4000 BC. That’s more than 6,000 years of culinary history. How I wish I had a cookbook from back then.
Black bean brownie recipes have been around for some time, especially here in California. Most versions are flourless, which is helpful for those on gluten-free or Celiac disease diets.
Every time I would talk to people about black bean brownies, I’d scratch my head at why anyone would use black beans when red beans seemed a more logical confection choice. In my culinary world, it’s just a given that the black beans had to go and red beans should take center stage.
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.
I bought the Korean version of Bae Yong Joon’s best-selling book, The Journey to Discover the Beauty of Korea. I got the book because I knew there would be several Korean food recipes tucked in the pages. I got excited when I found his recipe for Kalbi steak so I decided I would work translating the recipe into English (ahead of Bae’s forthcoming English version) and also test out the recipe to make sure the ingredients and methods would work in an American kitchen.
Even though the kalbi recipe excited me (and my family) the most, there are other noteworthy recipes in the book as well, including Bae’s mother’s personal recipe for cucumber kimchi (page 67).
My first step in translating this recipe for American audiences was to try to make sure I got the correct cut of beef rib. The picture Bae included is a spartan shot of the finished kalbi steak on a plate. It did not look like the chopped up beef ribs one usually finds in the grocery store for braised ribs. It also didn’t look like the wang kalbi style that one finds all over Korea and at higher end kalbi restaurants in the USA. Bae’s recipe does not use the thinly sliced LA style kalbi ribs like those featured in my own Kalbi video on YouTube.
I took my book to the nearest butcher. I showed him the picture in Bae’s book and asked him what kind of beef rib was in the picture. He was adamant that Bae’s kalbi steak was made with Beef Plate Short Ribs.
These ribs are a much thicker cut than I’ve ever seen in Korean cuisine. I bought four plate ribs and brought them home. Each rib was 8-9 inches long and over an inch thick. There’s no way that these behemoth ribs are the same thing as Bae’s photo but I tried to make them work within the specifications of Bae’s recipe. These ribs could have been a stand in for T-Rex ribs in a Flinstones movie.
Fortunately, the marinade was much less dramatic and traumatic.
Bae’s kalbi steak recipe is divided into three parts: First he lists the ingredients for the kalbi steak marinade. Then he provides a recipe for the Hyang Shin Jeup sauce (향신즙) which is then mixed into the marinade. At the end, he gives instructions on how to cook the ribs.
If you live near a Koreatown or a well stocked Korean grocery store, you don’t have to make your own Hyang Shin Jeup from scratch. Sempio(샘표), a South Korean food company, sells a version they call “Gourmet Seasoning Sauce.” I’m standing by Bae’s version (even though it takes some work) because not everyone has access to a well-stocked Korean grocery store.
Here is my paraphrase of Bae Yong Joon’s Kalbi Steak Recipe. My comments are in parenthesis. I double checked my paraphrased translation of this recipe with my local Korean grocer to make sure I understood the recipe.
To prep 3-4 flanken cut beef ribs, you need to score them approximately a quarter way down to the rib so the beef will not contort while boiling or grilling.
How to make the Kalbi Steak Marinade
1 cup 향신즙 juice 1/3 cup soy sauce *50 ml (approx 3 tbsp) 맛술 mirin *50 ml (approx 3 tbsp) Cheongju rice wine (similar to Japanese sake) 2/3 cup sugar (설탕) 1/3 cup sesame seed oil a pinch of black pepper
(*Bae’s recipe calls for 50 cc of mirin and cheongju rice wine but cc is equal to ml)
How to make the Hyang Sin Jeup juice (향신즙)
100 grams (approx. 1/3 cup) Korean radish 100 grams (approx 1/3 cup) Korean pear 100 grams (approx 1/3 cup) garlic 10 grams of ginger
Grate the radish, pear, garlic and ginger. (I did it by hand but a food processor or a juicer will do the job, too). Strain in fine cheese cloth (or a fine mesh strainer). Add to the marinade.
How to pre-cook and marinade the ribs
1. Put the ribs in cold water and rinse off the blood. 2. Cook the ribs for 2-3 minutes in boiling water. Pull out the ribs and allow them to cool down before putting the ribs in the marinade. Marinade all day until you are ready to grill or broil the ribs.
Here is where I ran into real problems. Bae recommends pre-boiling the ribs for about 2-3 minutes in boiling water and then pull them out, allow them to cool down and put them in the marinade all day until you’re ready to grill them.
I ran into a lot of problems very quickly
I didn’t have a cooking pot tall enough to fit these very long ribs completely into the pot to boil them and getting them evenly boiled was a lot of work.
I didn’t have a bowl large enough to properly marinade them so I had to buy the largest Tupperware dish I could find (larger than a lasagna pan) to marinade the ribs.
Boiling these thick ribs for only 2-3 minutes wasn’t going to shorten the broiling time enough to make this practical. I boiled them for over 1/2 an hour before marinading them and they still took over an hour, baking at 375 to get to medium rare. I don’t eat meat medium rare on purpose.
So I went back to the drawing board, throwing out the counsel of my well-meaning, non-Korean butcher. I went online and found a page called The Zen of beef ribs and reached an epiphany. Bae has been using flanken ribs all along but he wasn’t using the skinny cut common to LA Kalbi. He was using a thicker cut of flanken ribs. So, I went back to the butcher and ordered up 4 flanken cut beef ribs, approximately 1-2 inches thick.
The right beef rib, an English cut flanken rib. Trim off most of the visible fat but you do need to leave some on while it's cooking.
Bae mentions scoring the ribs so they will broil evenly. This is fine on the top but there’s another step you must take to make sure the ribs do not shrink and contort while grilling. On the backside of the ribs, you’ll find the silver skin, but it is not an edible or tasty silver lining. You must take your sharp chef’s knife and remove the silver skin from the ribs. If you do it right, the silver skin will come off in one strip.
The final product with the right cut of rib.
This time the recipe worked out very well. I baked the ribs at 375 for about 45 minutes to an hour to get them medium well and I was very happy with the results. Since the recipe includes natural sugar from the Asian pear as well as some granulated sugar, you will have some charring, which is unavoidable if you cook the ribs to medium well or well-done.
The ribs got rave reviews and my family are already begging me to make them again.
Since 2010 seems to be the year of the Korean taco truck, I decided to bring this popular Korean fusion food to you. I’m serving up a So-Cal vs. Nor-Cal face off between two very different versions.
California is Korean fusion cooking central, in a manner of speaking. According to the 2007 U.S. Census, more than 322,628 native Koreans make California their home. It has the largest number of Korean immigrants of any in the U.S., even Hawaii.
Kogi-style* Korean Tacos
First off the grill is a version inspired by Roy Choi’s famous Kogi taco truck. The Kogi Korean taco was born in Southern California, with a strong Hispanic influence. A warm corn tortilla is topped with bulgogi (savory-sweet grilled beef), shredded cabbage and the spiciest kimchi you can find.
The key to this recipe is the bulgogi marinade.
1 pound thinly sliced milanesa beef sliced into thin strips 4 ounces pear juice 1/4 cup soy sauce 1/4 cup sake 1 tablespoon honey or mul yoot (Korean malt syrup) 5 cloves garlic, minced 2 tablespoons sesame seed oil 2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds pinch of salt 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
Mix with the beef and marinade for at least a half-hour. The longer the better.
Grill the bulgogi in a cast iron skillet until it is well done.
Place one warmed corn tortilla on the plate with a small handful of shredded cabbage. Top with bulgogi and kimchi. This recipe will serve four.
Namu-style Korean Tacos
Another Korean taco style hails from San Francisco, which has over 150 years of Chinese, Japanese and Korean immigrant history going back to the earliest days of statehood. Many of the leaders of Korea’s independence movement used San Francisco as their base of operations during the Japanese occupation.
The Namu-style Korean taco is a nori — kim, in Korean — “taco shell” with a bit of sushi rice, bulgogi or boneless kalbi (grilled ribs) and kimchi on top. It’s more of an appetizer than a meal, but it packs a lot of flavor. For the seaweed used for the “shell,” I used Annie Chun’s Roasted Seaweed Snacks, which I found during my futile search for locally sourced gochujang sauce. I have both the wasabi- and sesame flavored-wraps and used one of each for these tacos.
Asian grocery stores sell small sheets of kim. Koreans often wrap them around a small bite of rice and pop the package into their mouths, eat the seaweed sheets by themselves or cut them into small strips to sprinkle on bibimbap (mixture of ingredients such as vegetables, meat and an egg with rice).
1 pound carne de taco beef marinaded in bulgogi marinade for at least a half-hour 2 nori sheets per taco sushi rice diced tomatoes
The most complicated part of this recipe is the sushi rice. Here are the basics.
2 cups Japanese short-grained white rice or Calrose short-grain rice 1/4 cup rice vinegar (no substitutions) 2 teaspoons salt 1/4 cup sugar or add more to taste
Heat the vinegar, sugar and salt in a saucepan until the sugar is dissolved. Do not boil the mixture. You can also microwave the mixture for 30-45 seconds to achieve the same result. Leave sitting off heat until needed. You can make this portion ahead of time.
Take 2 cups of rice and rinse two to three times until the water runs clear or nearly so.
If your rice cooker has a sushi rice setting, use it. Otherwise, remember you need equal parts of rice to water. For example, 2 cups of rice needs 2 cups of water. Keep covered until the rice is done.
Once the rice has finished cooking, take off the lid and let the rice cool down for about 15 minutes.
Once the rice is cooled down, add the vinegar seasoning mix to the rice.
Turn the rice out of the pot and into a nonreactive glass or wooden bowl (tradition dictates a wooden bowl to better absorb the excess liquid). Use a tool like a shamoji, which is a flat Japanese rice paddle.
Use a gentle chopping motion to spread out the grains of rice and ensure the seasoning covers every grain. To speed up the cooling process, some people use a hand-held fan to help in the cooling process, but I didn’t find that necessary.
Once it’s cooled off, you’re ready to grill your bulgogi and assemble your tacos.
Put two sheets of nori on the plate, one on top of the other. Add up to a few tablespoons of sushi rice on top of the nori.
Pile a couple of tablespoons of bulgogi and garnish with diced tomatoes
Which version do you prefer? Tell us in the comments below.
* Kogi style tacos are in no way affiliated with the Kogi Taco Truck, just inspired by it.
I’ve been in search of a breakfast item lately, something healthy and light yet filling – in the stomach and in the brain. A bowl of cereal and some fruit are nice, but my brain recognizes them more as desserts than proper breakfasts.
Danhobak (단호박; known by its Japanese name kabocha in the U.S.) has always been one of my favorite ingredients, and it was one of the first topics I wrote about when I started my own blog. Although it’s categorized as a winter squash, I can easily find it year-round, and that’s how often I have it at home – year-round. Its bright orange-yellow color, which is also an indication of high level of beta-carotene, and natural sweetness make it a great main or supporting ingredient for any dish. Even the hard skin that comes with high dietary fiber content becomes soft and edible after cooking. Add more of other good stuff – brown rice flour, sweet rice flour and walnuts and bring everything together with some of the usual baking ingredients.
The texture of this rice muffin – right in between dense, chewy tteok (떡; rice cake) and soft muffin – is quite interesting. I mulled over to decide if it’s tteok or muffin with each bite (which led me to eat 3 in a row), but it’s so right in the middle I first named it Tteok Muffin. That’s not so creative but it speaks the reality of it. I’m still getting used to the texture, but one thing I like about it is that it is pretty filling in my mouth and in my stomach.
The recipe below makes about 12 small rice muffins.
Kabocha Rice Muffin
INGREDIENTS 1 Danhobak 2/3 cup Brown rice flour 2/3 cup Mochiko (찹쌀가루; chap ssal ga ru or sweet rice flour) 1 tsp. Baking powder 1/4 tsp. Salt 2 Eggs 2 Tbsp. Sugar 1/3 cup Oil (preferably light, like grape seed oil) 1/2 cup Milk 1/2 cup Walnuts, toasted and chopped
Microwave a rinsed danhobak for 5-7 minutes, or until a knife goes through with no resistance. Cut in half, then scoop out the seeds. Scoop out the flesh and reserve. I saved the flesh and the skin separately.
Sift together 2/3 C brown rice flour (I used the one from Wholefoods), 2/3 cup mochiko, 1 tsp. baking powder, 1/4 tsp. salt and reserve.
Whisk 2 eggs and 2 Tbsp. sugar (this is about the minimum amount of sugar you can add. Feel free to add 1-2 Tbsp. more) until slightly foamy. Then add 1/3 cup oil (I used grape seed oil), 1/2 cup milk, and 1/2 cup danhobak flesh from #1 and mix well. Add #2 and mix well. Fold in 1/2 cup of toasted, chopped walnuts. Optional: Top the muffins with small diced danhobak skin pieces for garnish.
Spoon the batter into cupcake molds (silicon molds or paper cups), and place them in a steamer. Put the lid on and steam for 30 minutes. When a toothpick inserted through the middle of a muffin comes out clean, it’s done.
You can freeze the leftover danhobak flesh and skin in a plastic bag for another time. You can also freeze the leftover muffins in a plastic bag and microwave it for 30 seconds to a minute right before eating. For those adventurous souls out there, I also baked the same batter in a mini cake mold at 350°F, and it feels just too wet even after passing the toothpick test.
Enjoy this delicious rice muffin with another breakfast favorite of mine, black bean smoothie!
A recipe for creamy fettuccine with leeks, corn and arugula near the back of the June 2010 edition of Real Simple magazine could have been written by one of those corn-obsessed Korean foodies.
Koreans try to sneak corn in everything: pizza, potato salad and even ice cream. Nutritiondata.com reports that one cup of corn kernels provides 25 percent of the recommended daily allowance of iron. Is there a hidden anemia epidemic to explain the kernel corn craze?
So the cup of those ubiquitous sweet corn kernels already gave this recipe Korean moxie, as did replacing the arugula with sesame leaves.
Here’s my spin on the Real Simple recipe:
1 pound linguine (I use high-protein pasta by Dreamfields to reduce the glycemic level of this meal.) 1 tablespoon olive oil 2 leeks (white and light green parts, thinly sliced) 4 garlic cloves, minced 1 cup corn kernels 1/2 cup dry white wine (use drinkable wine, not cooking wine) 1 cup sesame leaves, julienned 3/4 cup heavy cream 1/4 cup grated pecorino Romano cheese salt and pepper to taste (I used 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper)
Rinse the sliced leeks to make sure there’s no dirt between the layers.
Cook pasta according to the directions on the box.
Heat the olive oil in skillet on medium high heat.
Add leeks, garlic, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1/4 teaspoon of pepper and cook for approximately three to four minutes, stirring occasionally until they are tender.
Add the corn and wine. Allow to simmer for two to three minutes until the corn is tender.
Add the cream and stir in.
At this point, add the pasta and season with a 1/2 teaspoon of salt and a 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper and stir to combine.
Fold in the sesame leaves and sprinkle with the grated pecorino just before serving.
