Cucumber Kimchi
오이김치
According to the Korean Food Promotion Institute, there are more than 200 varieties of kimchi in Korea. Although the ingredients are different, kimchi is made with salted vegetables, mixed with condiments, and left fermented. In summer, cucumber kimchi is popular, as cucumber is a seasonal vegetable which makes you refresh.
INGREDIENTS
- 7 cucumbers
- 4 red chillis
- 4 green chillis
- 100ml flour
- 2.8lt water
- 1 pear
- 300ml sea salt
For the seasoning:
- 3 Tbsp jocheong (grain syrup)
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 Tbsp ginger juice
- 3 Tbsp salt
METHOD
- Scrub cucumber with 200ml of salt and marinate for about 2 hours.
- Add 100ml of salt to 2lt water. Bring to a boil and blanch the marinated cucumber from step 1.
- Julienne the pear.
- Add the 100ml of flour to 800ml of water. Put the mixture on medium heat for 10 minutes. Keep stirring.
- Cut the red and green chillis. Add to the mixture from step 4 and grind the mixture in a blender.
- Cut the cucumbers into 3 or 4 pieces. Cut through each cucumber piece in a cross pattern, lengthwise, but leave the ends uncut.
- Mix the ingredients from steps 3 and 5, and stuff the mixture into the cut cucumber pieces.
- Serve immediately, and keep the rest in a Tupperware container or sealed jar in the fridge. If you prefer it to be fermented, leave the container at room temperature for a couple of days until it smells and tastes sour. Then put it into the fridge.
Recipe source: Venerable Beop Song
Venerable Beop Song is a Korean Buddhist nun, renowned chef, and cookbook author, who resides in Yeongseonsa temple in Daejeon City. She became a Buddhist nun in 1996 under the tutelage of Venerable Seongkwan. Starting in 2021, she has been delivering demonstrations of Korean Temple Food to students as part of the Diploma in Plant-Based Culinary Arts in Le Cordon Bleu. Her latest publication is a cookbook Beop Song’s Korean Temple Food with Root Vegetables (2022).
Illustration source: @ thibaudherem
