The many uses for this Korean cuisine staple
For Susan Chung, owner of Sue’s Kimbap House, kimchi is as much a staple of everyday cooking as flour or butter.
“Kimchi is just a traditional Korean dish that was made with fermented vegetables,” said Chung, who is the Capitol Center for the Arts’ Culinary Artist in Residence and whose eatery is at Bank of NH Stage in Concord. “The most common type is made from napa cabbage. Another one is [made from] the Korean radish or daikon. Another one that probably isn’t as familiar is kimchi made with cucumbers. That’s one we’re planning to launch at our store coming up soon. But the main thing about kimchi is it’s so versatile that you can have it just as abanchan, or side dish, with just rice, a protein, or even just rice and egg. Traditionally, Korean people will eat kimchi sometimes three times a day for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I personally don’t, but it’s normal to do that, since even little kids start eating kimchi as early as 2 or 3 years old.”
Chung said she grew up in a non-Korean household and it was only after she married her husband that she began eating foods like kimchi on a regular basis.
“I wasn’t introduced to Korean food until I was in my 20s,” she said. “But the good thing is you can actually ease into kimchi. They have a non-spicy version, which is a watered-down one, which little kids will start off with. But also, if you’re new to the Korean palate, it’s something that you can do as well. Even if you were to try regular Korean kimchi, you can water it, rinse it with water, and then still eat it with a small amount of spice.”
Because there are almost as many varieties of kimchi as there are Korean families, Chung said, finding a particular type that suits a particular eater is mostly a matter of shopping around and finding one that suits their palate.
“There’s different levels [of intensity] to it,” she said. “If it’s fresh kimchi that’s made that day, it’s not as fermented as the ones you would keep in the refrigerator for up to a month or even longer. And then there are the ones you use once they get super fermented to add to stews and kimchi fried rice. And so when I say it comes to being very versatile, I think kimchi fried rice would be something that most people would be willing to try as well because everyone loves fried rice. But if you make it mixed with the kimchi and then with the fried egg on top, it’s something that a lot of our customers have been waiting for.”
One of the reasons for kimchi’s surge in popularity over the past few years is its reported health benefits. Gloria Najecki, the produce manager at the Concord Food Co-op, said, “It has become increasingly popular because people know that it’s good for their gut and it can be made from a lot of different things so it’s varied so it’s not just cabbage. I think fermented anything is big right now. People like fermented foods because they hear it’s good for their digestive microbiome, you know, their belly and all the good gut bacteria that live there. There’s a whole ecosystem in our bellies so you want to eat varied foods to help keep them all in balance.”
For Najecki, part of eating a balanced diet centers around eating a large variety of foods.
“I’m always saying, ‘Eat the rainbow’” she said. “Eat a lot of different colors. Eat a lot of different textures. You want to have sour things, bitter things. You want to mix it all up because all of that together helps that flora in your belly. And kimchi has healthy microorganisms in it, different yeasts and positive bacteria, that sort of thing.”
Luke Mahoney is the owner of Brookford Farm in Canterbury. He grows many of the key ingredients for kimchi on his farm, and his staff makes small batches of kimchi to sell at his farm store.
“All the ingredients are grown on the farm except ginger,” he said. “The base is napa cabbage and we use leeks and carrots and daikon radish. We grow a Korean pepper, which is specifically for kimchi, and we use garlic and ginger. Daikon [radishes] grow awesome here in New England, but specifically on our farm.”
A member of Mahoney’s staff is a fermentation expert named Irina. “She moved here from Russia to be with her family about 10 years ago,” Mahoney said. “She’s been experimenting with different types of conserves and fermentations. She had a job in science in [Russia], but then when she moved here, she no longer worked in science. She didn’t have the language, so we offered her a position as our fermenter. It was kind of a dream we had, but it was still undeveloped. She dove in and got inspired and used her life experience and recipes and also whatever ingredients we had on the farm at the time. She created a wide variety of beautiful artisanal craft ferments. And the kimchi is her pride and joy.”
Stephanie Zydenbos is obsessed with fermentation, too. She is the founder of and facilitator for Micro Mamas in Henniker, a company that makes kimchi and other fermented vegetables.
“We were the very first commercial fermenters in the state,” Zydenbos said. “We learned a lot and continue to be marveled by the art of fermentation — because it is an art.”
Zydenbos said her fascination with fermentation grew from chronic health challenges.
“From adolescence through my early adulthood I had lots of different sinus problems and digestive problems,” she said. “I wasn’t an unhealthy child, but I think that the best way to say it is that I just had a less than optimal digestive system. I took a workshop on kimchi and sauerkraut and how to make our own probiotic foods. I wanted to treat my digestive symptoms naturally and I had been taking some pretty high-dollar high-quality probiotics — which I don’t recommend; anybody, stop doing that! — and I made my first batch of kimchi around the time I had my first child, because I wanted to get my children off to a good start with their digestive health. Around 2011 or 2012 I woke up in the middle of the night and I’m like, ‘Why am I not doing this for a living?’”
Zydenbos said the healthy microorganisms in fermented foods like kimchi start in the soil where the vegetables are grown.
“The microbiology of the soils are how vegetables and isolates of lactic acid bacteria are in the vegetables themselves,” she said. “We get those vegetables in their raw form right from the field.” As vegetables ferment, she explained, “the starches and the sugars break down from the vegetables. They are basically pre-digesting the starches and the sugars and [producing] lactic acid bacteria in addition to accelerating the vitamin and nutrient content of raw vegetables” As the fermentation grows more acidic, she said, it kills off most of any competing bacteria and microorganisms. “The pH becomes so low that the good microbes thrive and none of the harmful bacteria that might exist.”
Zydenbos likes to take a simple approach to eating kimchi.
“The No. 1 thing I like to do,” she said, “is to open some sour cream or hummus and throw 100 grams or so of kimchi in there. That’s it. Bam. Done. It takes chips and dip and brings it to an entirely different level.”
Because the flavor of kimchi covers a spectrum from “zesty” to “pungent” it has been welcomed by fine-dining chefs in recent years to add background flavor, texture, or even a “funky” quality to sauces and dishes. Nick Provencher is the executive chef at The Birch on Elm in Manchester. He said kimchi has found a place in his roster of ingredients.
“We have [a kimchi dish] on the menu currently,” he said, “and we always use a variety of different ferments, whether it be kimchi or to preserve seasonal vegetables, especially in the summer when there’s something like ramps we’ll ferment. We always have different kinds. Right now we have [kimchi] in a kind of a Korean-style barbecue sauce as a base that we cook down with onions, garlic, aromatics and ginger.”
“I think for the most part kimchi adds a lot of depth because it has a variety of different flavor profiles to it,” Provencher said. “It’s got a kind of bold, vinegary quality. It’s like, it’s kind of like blue cheese — it’s stinky but it’s like a good stink, you know? You have spice there, too, which can round a dish out. I think it really makes some dishes shine because of the depth [and pungency] it adds to the sauce. It’s nice too, because there’s also the level of acidity that comes from it, which cuts the fat of a pork belly, which is something we serve with it.”
Keith Sarasin is a chef, an author, and owner of The Farmer’s Dinner, a pop-up restaurant devoted to local, seasonal and sustainable dishes. He is a big fan of kimchi.
“I feel like kimchi is one of those unsung heroes that has existed in either progressive or fine dining scenes for a while,” Sarasin said. “The first thing that makes kimchi great is it’s very universal in what you can put in it. So, obviously cabbage, chilies and things of that nature. But since what we do at The Farmer’s Dinner is so rooted in farms, we’ll add a lot of different backbones to kimchi. Let’s say we have a bunch of arugula — we will gladly add some arugula into [a batch of kimchi]. Whenever we used to forage a lot back in the day, we would add dandelion greens and burdock root and all of these fun things, which give a different layer and complexity to kimchi, starting out with that bitterness. It’s a lot of fun and it reminds me a lot of balancing everything else that you have.”
Because Sarasin works so much with small, local farms, he has seen non-traditional foods like kimchi (non-traditional in New England, anyway) having an impact on what crops those farms grow.
“I feel like diversity has definitely been something that we’ve seen,” he said, “especially in the last five to 10 years. You can always find savoy cabbages and napa and all of these cabbages, but I think you’re seeing more daikons. You’re also seeing a lot more varieties of peppers that are being grown, which is really exciting for me because I love peppers. Part of the backbone of [kimchi] is you definitely need chili powder. It’s one of the really quintessential things. There’s the standard, traditional kimchi, which is out of this world, but then there’s a lot of ways to bring in food waste that typically would go in the bin, you can repurpose to really bring into a beautiful kimchi.”
“Kimchi’s not only about sustainability for us,” Sarasin said. “A lot of what we do is technique-driven, and we’ve used a lot of different techniques when it comes to utilizing kimchi. One of my favorite things to do with kimchi is instead of just serving it we do a lot of dehydration. So we dehydrate kimchi, either the whole kimchi or the brine, and spread it thin on a Silpat [a silicone baking mat] and then we let that dehydrate and grind it into a powder. We’ve used that to dust over dishes like a Wagyu tartare, a creamy soup, or even a savory custard because you get that salt, acidity and umami in one sprinkle. Kimchi lends itself to seafood unbelievably well, and we live in such a beautiful place for seafood. We’ve done kimchi sauces but we built them up with the intensity of aged kimchi. We love to ferment daikon and things of that nature and smear it over pork belly and foie gras.”
Chef Sarasin’s Kimchi Butter Sauce
Yields ~1 cup
Pairs well with seared scallops, roasted cauliflower, halibut, grilled chicken thigh, even a wild mushroom toast.
- ½ cup (188 g) aged kimchi, finely chopped
- 2 Tablespoons kimchi brine
- ¼ cup (55 g) white wine or dry vermouth
- 1 Tablespoon rice vinegar or white wine vinegar
- 1 small shallot, finely minced
- 1 teaspoon sugar (optional, balances acidity)
- ½ cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cubed
- salt to taste
- optional: a splash of cream if you want a silkier mouthfeel
1. Start the reduction
In a small saucepan, add the shallots, kimchi, brine, wine and vinegar. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat and reduce until almost dry; basically you want 2-3 tablespoons of liquid left. You want the acidity concentrated but not overpowering.
2. Strain (optional)
If you want a smoother sauce, strain out the solids. But I like leaving the finely chopped kimchi in there for texture and visual.
3. Mount with butter
Lower the heat to low. Whisk in the cold butter cubes one at a time, making sure each one emulsifies before adding the next. Don’t let it boil or it’ll break. If it’s too punchy, add a tiny splash of cream at the end.
4. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Depending on your kimchi, you might not need salt. Serve immediately.
Kimchi Fried Rice
Fried Rice
- 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
- 1 cup (188 g) chopped kimchi
- 3 cups (445 g) steamed rice
- ¼ cup (55 g) kimchi juice
- ¼ cup (55 g) water
- 2-3 Tablespoons gochujang (Korean chili paste)
- 1 teaspoon fish sauce or Maggi Seasoning
- 3 teaspoons (1 Tablespoon) toasted sesame oil
Garnish
- 2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds
- 1 mini cucumber or ⅓ normal cucumber, peeled, seeded and cut into slivers
- 3 scallions, chopped
- ¼ cup (57 g) prepared seaweed salad – you can find this at the sushi counter at many supermarkets
Heat the vegetable oil over medium-high heat, then add the chopped kimchi, and fry for about a minute.
Add rice, kimchi juice, water, gochujang and fish sauce. Stir all the ingredients together for seven or eight minutes with a wooden spoon.
According to master chef Roy Choi, the best part of any fried rice is the carmelized, crispy bits from the bottom of the pan. In a Facebook video he advises turning the heat all the way up and letting the rice cook for another minute or two to crisp up the rice. “The thing about this rice, as you see, is we take it to the edge. You feel like you’re going to fall off. You feel like this thing’s going to burn. You take it so far that you think that you can’t take it any farther, that you’re almost scared that it’s going to collapse and be ruined.” Be fearless, in other words.
After a minute or so of cooking at high heat, stir the rice to see if you’ve achieved any crusty bits. If your courage holds out, you might want to blast the rice for another minute or so to recrisp the stirred rice.
Plate the rocket-hot rice in a serving bowl, then drizzle it with sesame oil, and garnish it with the sesame seeds, cucumber slivers, scallions, and seaweed salad.
Kimchi Tacos (plant-based)
Chelsea Mackler is the cheese manager at Whole Foods Supermarket in Bedford. She is not vegan herself, but her wife is. She said that a year or two ago, when her wife was having a rough week, she made kimchi tacos for her, which were extremely well-received. This is a riff on those tacos:
- ½ cup (114 g) vegan sour cream – I like one from Forager Project; it has a really good flavor
- ¼ cup (64 g) tahini (sesame paste)
- 1 Tablespoon toasted sesame oil
- 4 to 6 ounces (100 to 175 g) shiitake mushrooms, cleaned, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1 cup (164 g) canned chickpeas, rinsed and drained
- ¼ teaspoon each salt and pepper
- ¼ cup (55 g) water
- 4 six-inch flour tortillas
- 1 cup (164 g) kimchi
In a smallish bowl, combine the vegan sour cream and tahini. Set aside.
In a large skillet, heat the sesame oil over medium heat, then fry the chickpeas until lightly browned, seven minutes or so. Add the mushrooms and water, then cook, covered, until the shiitakes soften and take on a little color, maybe five minutes more. Season with salt and pepper, then transfer the mixture to a bowl and set aside.
Toast the tortillas in any sesame oil remaining in the pan, about a minute on each side. Keep an eye on them; you’re not looking to make them crispy, just to give them a little color and to cook off their floury taste.
Assemble the tacos. Put 1 to 1½ tablespoons of kimchi at the bottom of each taco, topped with ¼ of the shiitake/chickpea mixture. Top with a tablespoon or so of the tahini sauce.
These are extraordinarily good tacos — not just vegan tacos, but excellent tacos, period. The chickpeas give a little extra savoriness and texture to the mushrooms. The kimchi gives spiciness and flavor but also some essential crunch. Sesame and kimchi pair really well together, so the creamy tahini sauce is just about perfect.
This will make four tacos, which sounds like enough for two people, but the slower eater might end up having to fight to defend their second taco. Plan on four of these guys as a single serving, and adjust the recipe accordingly.
Korean Dirty Martini
- Dry vermouth
- 2 ounces botanical gin – I used Malfi Rosa, a grapefruit-forward gin, and I was very pleased with it
- ½ ounce of kimchi juice – the flavor and assertiveness of this will depend on the kimchi you have on hand, so be prepared to embrace your first martini of the batch, then adjust how much takes you to where you want to be; half an ounce is a good starting point
Hardware:
- A mixing glass – NOT a cocktail shaker. When making a for-real, actual martini, please stir it rather than shake it. It really does make a difference.
- A long-handled spoon for stirring – not surprisingly, a bar spoon is perfect for this.
- Ice
- A stemmed martini glass – martinis are at their best skull-shrinkingly cold, and holding the glass by the stem keeps the heat of your hands from warming yours up.
- A cocktail strainer.
Chill your martini glass by either filling it with crushed ice or putting it in your freezer for 10 minutes or so.
Fill your mixing glass half full with ice and pour an ounce or so of vermouth over it. Stir to coat the ice cubes with the vermouth, then strain away any excess. This is what is called a “dry martini”; it retains just enough vermouth to subtly flavor the drink. There is a version called a “perfect” martini, which uses equal amounts of vermouth and gin. Because the kimchi element will probably be a new experience for you, start with a dry martini and adjust from there.
Pour the gin and kimchi juice into the mixing glass and stir gently but thoroughly, then strain the orange liquor into your chilled martini glass.
If you are a dirty martini enthusiast, this will be right up your alley. It is spicy and sour, with a stiff alcoholic backbone that lets you know you are drinking a grownup cocktail. If you haven’t been a fan of dirty martinis up till now, this might convert you.
