Hey, it’s Emily again, adding radish kimchi to your Korean side dish repertoire. It’s crunchy, fresh, and often found as a side dish at Korean restaurants that specialize in stews. I began my journey with radish kimchi because of my one friend who loves kkakdugi. Unfortunately, I’m still horrible at saying it after intense minutes of continuous, grueling practice, so you’ll have better luck learning the pronunciation from a YouTube video. Nevertheless, the eating part is way more important than the saying it part. So, after I perfected my cabbage kimchi, I was ready to conquer the next side dish beast: radish kimchi.
Because I subjected my friend to extensive kimchi experimentation, I’ve finally nailed down a recipe we both love. Disclaimer: I’m rashly assuming that all Koreans know what good Korean kimchi tastes like. My friend is Korean and grew up eating his mom’s kkakdugi, so I’m going to exploit his heritage as validation – this rendition is both authentic and tasty! Again, I’ve taken inspiration from Maangchi’s and Korean Bapsang’s recipe and adapted the quantity from 5 lbs of radish to 1 lb, something a little more realistic for my tiny self.
Link to ingredient explanations
Ingredients
- 1 lb of radish kimchi
- 5 cloves of garlic
- 1 inch slice of ginger
- 2 scallions
- 1/4 cup of gochugaru
- 1.5 tbsp of saeujeot
- 1 tbsp of saeujeot juice
- 1 tbsp of fish sauce
- 1 tbsp of sugar
- Coarse salt
- (Optional) 2 tbsp of sesame seeds
Instructions
- Cut the radish into 1-inch cubes
- Rub them with salt and leave them out for 30 minutes
- Meanwhile, mince the garlic, ginger, and saeujeot
- Chop the scallions into 1-cm slices
- Mix the chopped ingredients with the saeujeot juice, fish sauce, sugar, and sesame seeds. This should become a thick paste.
- The salt should’ve drawn some of the water from the radish. Drain the radish and lightly rinse them to remove most of the salt.
- Mix the radish with the paste together. WITH GLOVES.
- Seal in an airtight container and leave out at room temperature for ~3 days. Longer if you like it a little more sour.
- Best served cold!