That fabulous funk: The story of Kimchi

illustration of kimchi

Kimchi: a Korean side dish made with fermented and pickled vegetables. Source: Joanna Hu

Fermented food is a growing industry thanks to wellness warriors and celebrity chefs, but is what you’re eating actually anything like the real thing?


Fermented foods can be polarising, but with kimchi, kombucha and other ferments stocked in cafes everywhere, it feels as though we've reached 'peak pickle'.

So how big is the fermentation industry now?

And are BIPOC fermenters getting the love they deserve from this wave?

In episode three of Bad Taste, Korean deli owner Alum Choi and PhD candidate Miin Chan speak about their experience and research in this area.
White gatekeepers took the narrative when it comes to fermented foods..... and it became about satisfying white tastes. Miin Chan
Hosted by food writer Jess Ho, Bad Taste is a six-part podcast series that looks at who we are through the foods we eat.

Follow Bad Taste in the SBS Radio appSpotifyApple PodcastsGoogle Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts.

Each episode of Bad Taste is paired with a recipe on SBS Food. Try Jess' recipe for geotjeori (fresh kimchi).

Host and producer: Jess Ho
Executive producer: Michelle Macklem
Series producer: Bethany Atkinson-Quinton
Sound designer: Nicole Pingon
Editor: Zoe Tennant
Theme music: Rainbow Chan
Art: Joanna Hu

Want to get in touch? Email us at badtaste@sbs.com.au

Transcript

Jess Ho: Hey this is Jess and I’m recording this on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation, where the rest of this episode has also been recorded. I acknowledge the ongoing effects of colonisation and how it impacts the soil, the production of foods, and in turn the foods we eat today. I pay my respects to the elders past and present, it always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

***

Ho: When I worked in the city, I always left the office for a walk during my lunch break.

(sound of footsteps on gravel)

Ho: It was a good opportunity to stroll around and get some fresh air.

(funky baseline)

Ho: There was this little sushi shop that was always empty. Then one day, it was gone. The windows were papered over and the glass clouded over with dust. I forgot about it until I was out on one of my walks and I saw it’d been replaced by something else. The door was propped open. I could see that the space was cleaned out and the walls were lined with fridges filled with plastic containers. The sign read “Mumchan.”

(bassline picks up)

Ho: When I walked in, I inspected every single container in the fridge. I wanted to eat it all.

(groovy guitar riff)

Ho: Soy pickled chillies, stir-fried radish with perilla seeds, bracken, aster, sweetened black beans, caramelised walnuts and anchovies, raw marinated pollock roe…and eleventy-billion varieties of kimchi. 

(music ends)

Ho: When I got back to the office, I sided up to my Korean workmate and asked her if she knew about “Mumchan.” She laughed and said she'd been waiting for me to ask her about it. So, we agreed to go together to and divide and conquer.

(new bassline)

Ho: We both grabbed a kimbap and agonised over which namul and kimchis to buy. We each left with a stack of containers so high we could hardly see. After a little jaywalking, we got back to the office. And finally, we got to eat.

(shimmering sound)

Ho: We laid out our spread and popped the container lids.

(sound of bottle popping open)

Ho: The smells of sugar, salt, garlic and onion made my mouth water

(music ends)

Ho: “Eeeeeew. That stinks!” someone in the office said. And I was like “Dude, you cook broccoli and canned tuna on the sandwich press. You can’t talk.” The audacity.

(theme song: ‘Ylang Ylang’ by Rainbow Chan - inquisitive bassline begins)

Ho: This is the same person who mainlines kombucha, overshares details about their poops and bangs on about gut health like they’re a gastroenterologist. It was clear to me that this person had no idea about kimchi. Had no idea that what they were smelling was the fermentation that people pay a premium for.

(theme beat drops)

Ho: I’m Jess Ho and this is Bad Taste, a podcast about who we are through the foods we eat.

I love kimchi. I reach for it when I want to make a low-effort mediocre meal taste instantly amazing. It’s so normal to me I don’t even think about the smell. But when my colleague was grossed out by it, it got me thinking, how can Korean fermenters get the love they deserve? And why are fermented foods so polarising? So, I am going straight to the source and talking to Alum Choi, the owner and chef of Mumchan.

(theme ends)

Alum Choi and Jess Ho in unison: Hi!

(floor creaks)

Alum Choi: Oh hello!

Jess Ho: How are you?

Ho: I've drooled over Alum's instagram for years. We've emailed and texted a bit. But this is the first time I get to meet her in person. They say never to meet your heroes, so I'm super nervous, but she is so bubbly.

Ho: Nice to finally meet you.

Choi: Oh you’re Jess?

(they laugh)

Ho: It's a warm Friday morning and Alum's got her staff covering the shop. She’s come over and is still on a high from making big batches of kimchi for the week.

Choi: I’ve brought some kimchi samples.

Ho: She’s also brought four containers with her and I’ve got a pretty good idea of what they’re filled with.

Choi: This is the one we made yesterday

Ho: When I smell this, just like, it's just so delicious ‘cause you can smell the chili and the funk and the garlic.

Ho: She’s brought the goods. Anything for research!

Ho: My mouth is actually salivating.

(funky bassline returns)

Ho: In case you didn’t know, Kimchi isn’t just made from cabbage. You can kimchi anything. So think of kimchi as a verb, a process, ‘to kimchi.’ Alum’s brought a range of kimchis with her, including radish and spring onions. It’s torturing me a little bit that we’re talking rather than eating. But we’ll get to that soon.

Choi: You can't have a meal without kimchi. I don't think that's ever happened on a Korean table.

Ho: Kimchi making isn't just a tradition, it's a rite of passage for a Korean, and Alum's mom taught her everything she knows…

(music ends)

Choi: from all the kimchis that she makes, the radish, kimchi was the one that I've always liked the best and she wouldn't teach me that recipe until I got married. I don't know what that,was about.

(both laugh)

Choi: It's a very finicky, it takes a long time. It's a lot of hard work, so you need the whole family. So that's why she taught me she needed my help.

Ho: And because you're handling tonnes of salt and spicy red pepper, it's really important to wear gloves.

Choi: you'll see, in Korea, they'll use a dishwashing gloves. Cause it's high. It comes up to your elbows.We used to have yellow ones… it ruins the colour. Like, kimchi stain, it doesn't come out so you have to chuck them out. It just turns red anyway. So all the dishwashing gloves in Korea are pink for that reason. Specifically for kimchi making.

Ho: When Alum first moved to Australia over 30 years ago, kimchi was near- impossible to find. Enter Mumchan.

Choi: So we opened with the hopes of bringing more traditional home-style Korean foods to Melbourne.

Ho: Thankfully the landscape has changed since then.

Choi: There are a lot of Korean restaurants, But with Mumchan we wanted to do things that were a little bit more interesting and different to what's already on offer.

Ho: A lot of the Korean restaurants in Australia serve foods that go hand in hand with drinking. Think fried chicken, Korean BBQ, tteokbokki. Alum wanted to bring another side of Korean food to Melbourne. So she chose a name to reflect her mission.

Choi: So Mumchan… we used the word “mum” intentionally. So it reflects the food that your mum makes for you. “Chan” means ban chan which is side dishes in Korean. I wanted a place where you could come when you miss your mom, when you’re home sick, for Korean food, when you're feeling sick, I think that's when people feel the loneliest, and really need that comforting and I think food is a great way to comfort the soul. Yeah I wanted to have an outlet for people to be able to access homemade mum, Korean food. We have a lot of people coming in, asking for the “normal kimchi,” yeah, the normal kimchi (laughs). I know what they're talking about. It's the fermented cabbage kimchi, which. Sour turns it's savoury, it's spicy… salty.

(fizzing sound)

Ho: So, kimchi can range from something quite fresh and crisp to something that is fizzy, funky and flaccid, depending on how long it's been fermented for. Kimchi is usually ready in days, but Alum says you can really ferment for as long as you want. She said in Korea, they’re selling 30-year old kimchi, but that’s even too hardcore for her tastebuds.

Choi: During, the different stages of fermentation, it pairs well with different things. You can use it for different, dishes. people like different stages of the fermented kimchis or like unfermented whatever, like everyone has their preference.

Ho: Kimchi making is an ancient art. It dates all the way back to 57BC. Koreans used to ferment and store vegetables in the brutally cold winter so that they didn’t die of starvation. So it makes sense that Koreans seem to have this kind of innate understanding of what to eat with what. With so many different kimchis, they are the ultimate matchmakers.

Choi: It can be a little bit difficult, um, to consume a lot. So It's more like a side condiment, but like Koreans eat kimchi, like by the bathful. There are kimchis that you normally serve with certain dishes.

Ho: Mm.

Choi: So for example, With soups, we tend to have radish kimchi. With Korean barbecue, you want a sour tone kimchi that you can fry once you're done with the meat. And you have like that meat residual marinade or like the pork fat, you cook the kimchi on the pan where the meat was and it’s delicious. But that one needs to be a well fermented, like a sour kimchi. In Korea, they'll give you like a large pot of radish kimchi. And you just take as much as you want. Yeah…

Ho: And because you can kimchi anything, logically, there are seasonal kimchis that people hang out for…

Choi: At the moment we've got Oi Sobagi, which is a stuffed Korean cucumber, but that cucumber is going to go out of season. the season's going to end soon. So probably have a friend a couple of days. We like to do a lot of seasonal kimchis, so it, depending on what vegetables are available or what ingredients we can get, in that season, we like to use, to make kimchi or different, side dishes. We try to kind of go with the flow, with the weather flow.

Ho: I get excited when I see yeolmu kimchi— a young radish that's still attached to the leaves. You can eat in one bite!

Choi: We try to have at least five or six different types of kimchi, on offer. Fermented wise, we've got the wombok stuffed cabbage, the whole cabbage, which is known as the “normal kimchi.” Radish kimchi, which is also a fermentor. one, is little bit of mustard leaf. The Spring onion kimchi. You’ve got white cabbage can she has as well, which is like the normal cabbage kimchi without the chilli powder. So for people who can't eat spicy, that’s the alternative.

Ho: Before I got onto Mumchan’s locally made kimchis, I was buying ones from Korean grocers. They’re brought in on refrigerated boats where they’re slowly fermenting. And we’re a long way from Korea, 8577kms to be exact— that's a bloody long ferment.

Choi: We want our kimchi to reflect freshness because it is made in Melbourne. It's consumed within what a couple of weeks of it being made. It's not like the store-bought, comes in from overseas. It takes time. We want the natural, sweet flavors, of the vegetables.

Ho: But it takes a lot of experience and some trial and error to create the same flavours that Alum grew up with.

Choi: The onions taste different every time they come, the cabbage tastes different every time. The radish, sometimes it's really spicy. Sometimes it's really sweet. So it's balancing out those things.

Ho: So, while she’s celebrating the seasons and using local produce, she tinkers with her mum’s recipe. She’s making kimchi that still tastes traditionally Korean, but uses Australian ingredients.

Choi: We try to use fruits, to kind of counter that and balance that and trying to make the kimchi that reflects the kimchi that you would have in Korea.

Ho: Mhm.

Choi: So that's one of our main focuses when we make kimchi.

Ho: And of course the same ingredients grown in different parts of the world taste different. That's terroir. The produce in Seoul should taste different to Melbourne. Mass production of food has brainwashed people into believing there’s a standard flavour. But when Alum’s cooking, she’s ultimately going by taste, not a recipe. She's cooking from what she remembers.

(thoughtful synth pads)

Ho: This is what I like to call ‘Taste Memory.’ It's something I see a lot of immigrants cooking with. And this is what Alum is doing by adding pureed fruits to mimic the sweetness of Korean onions. She's relying on her intuition, seasoning until something tastes right and honouring the traditions she was taught by her mum.

When people uproot their lives and settle in a different country, ingredients aren't available, or they're different. So when we cook, we use our memories as a guide to help us search for and recreate the flavour of home. Of our childhoods. Recipes don't translate because key ingredients are being subbed out, so we use our memories instead of manuals.

(pads change key)

Ho: And to Alum's surprise, Mumchan isn't just celebrated by Korean-Australians who want a taste of home.

Choi: I thought we'd have a lot more Korean people. But it's 50, 50. 50%. Koreans, Like, like Korean Koreans and 50%, like non-Koreans Koreans, like, white people, Asians like me Aussie Asians.

(music ends)

Ho: And she sees an obvious reason for it

Choi: Health, is a very important factor in food nowadays it's very fermentation really does, aid, health, gut health and things like that. It’s apparently very good for your skin as well. Cause, it has like anti-aging properties. That's very important to Korean people.

Ho: So people come for the health benefits, and some come for something else…

Choi: And I find like pickles fermented foods have become really popular. Salted foods as well. So like salted octopus and salted shrimp. Salted squids and things like that and that's something we offer as well, but I can't really eat it. But I find a lot of like white people coming to purchase it and eating it just with just on rice and it's amazing. It's like, I feel so accepted.

Ho: Oh that’s great!

Choi: They noticed the foods that are eaten in like the shows on Korean TV shows and dramas and movies. things They're like “I saw this on such and such show. (laughs) I want to try it.” Yeah.

Ho: That’s cool!!

Choi: it is cool. I'm like, oh yeah, I watch that too.

Ho: And I get what Alum means. When you grow up feeling like an outsider, seeing a food so important to your culture means everything. Sometimes, all it takes is a jar in the supermarket fridge. I had the same feeling when I saw oyster sauce on the shelf.

Choi: It’s so great to see like kimchi in Woolworth or like in Coles, in like those jars. It's amazing! I mean I've never thought of myself as like a, not a part of this community, but seeing the foods that I grew up with, or I identify with, in a store like Woolworths or Coles makes me feel really a part of the community. I mean, I felt a little left out in like food culture, but being there I feel represented. People are much more open, to new foods and expanding the Korean palette, which is something new.

Ho: But if we really want to get the best understanding of this ancient tradition, the best way to fully analyse it, is with our mouths.

(curious gentle melody)

Ho: I’m in the kitchen with Alum as she talks me through her precious cargo.

Choi: This one's the fermented cabbage kimchi, the “normal kimchi” that's been stuffed.

(Sound of container opening)

Ho: Well immediately I get this waft of garlic and I can actually smell the sweetness of the vegetables. I smell a lot of onion and almost like pear-like characteristics. So with the full cabbage kimchi, it's a quarter of a cabbage and it's sitting in its own kind of kimchi water that it's let out in the fermentation process,

Ho: For her to give me what’s in these plastic containers, she quarters whole cabbages, soaks them in a brine, drains them, washes off the excess salt, prepares the chilli paste, cooks starchy glue, mixes them together and wipes every layer of cabbage by hand. She then rolls each quarter into itself and stores it until she thinks they’re ready.

I am lucky enough to skip to the good part.

(chewing sounds)

Ho: It's so sweet. It’s so good.

Choi: Yeah

Both: So good (laughs)

Ho: This is not my first Mumchan rodeo, but every bite always tastes like the first. She tells me that each tastes different depending on their fermentation length. These are in different stages of transformation.

Choi: So this one would need another day to get the full fermented flavour but should have started to develop.

Ho: It doesn’t taste fermented at all. and you just get like this kind of warmth from the chilli paste. It's not spicy, but it's like rounded.

Choi: Mmm, delicious.

(groovy guitar)

Ho: I feel the crunch of the cabbage and the warmth of the chilli paste. Subtle onion undertones from garlic chives— one of my favourite ingredients in the world. And just the tiniest hint of funk— that smallest tickle of efflorescence on your tongue. Just enough to make you want to take another bite.

(guitar is joined by a light drum beat)

Ho: But what’s actually happening- scientifically— to get us from pasty cabbage to mouth-watering kimchi? What exactly is fermentation?

Miin Chan: Fermentation is the microbial transformation of food. Basically.

Ho: This is Miin Chan. She has spent a lot of time thinking about fermentation.

(music ends)

Chan: I grew up in Malaysia and I'm Chinese Malaysian. So fermented food was always there. I am currently a PhD candidate at the university of Melbourne looking at fermented foods for, in relation to health and I used to have a fermented drinks business for five years. So that's how I got really, really interested in fermentation.

Ho: Miin sold 'tibicos', but you might know it as water kefir.  And much like other fermenters, she realised that just about everything ferments. If you think about it, fermentation is just food, time and bacteria. If you open your fridge, there's definitely things fermenting in there. Most of it, unintentionally. And there are foods you eat that you might not even realise are fermented.

Chan: A big one that probably most people don't think about is chocolate. So chocolate beans or cacao beans are fermented before they have made into what we know as chocolate. Coffee is also fermented some types of tea are fermented. And even some types of bread are fermented like sourdough.

Ho: So if you think about that, it's kinda hard to even conceptualise it as an industry. It's freaking huge.

Chan: I think globally, I'd say it's in the billions of dollars area. In Australia, I couldn't give you exact numbers. It's difficult to group everything together, when you say fermented foods, because say, dairy based ferments can be quite different from vegetable based ferments, but I think it's definitely been growing.

Ho: She's seen the fermentation industry grow massively in the last decade. Both, In the home and industrially. Since Miin's Phd focuses on fermentation for health, like Alum, she celebrates the health benefits.

Chan: The whole thing was the gut microbiome and the microbiomes of our body and microbiomes of the environment, that's become a really hot topic in research, and I think that's filtered through very much into our thinking about food. People are always looking for some way to feel better and healthier and reconnect to foods that either they remember themselves or that they're— okay. I don't like to use the word but— discovering for the first time.

Ho: And we all know this person right? They just 'discovered' this new health craze. And Miin is seeing it turn into a whole industry.

Chan: In the wellness industry, it suddenly became like, if you eat this, it's going to make you healthy. It's going to make you amazing. It's going to protect you from COVID. I mean, Gwyneth Paltrow got told off by like the national medical director of the NHS in the UK, because she was saying, if you eat kimchi and drink kombucha, you're gonna save, ya know, yourself from COVID. 

Ho: And old mate Gwyneth isn't the only white person preaching the magic of kimchi. If we look back at history, this started a long time ago. Cast your minds back to those Hippy American sun children.

(dreamy sting into punchy bassline)

Chan: I think it got, co-opted really starting even in the sixties and seventies. There's been a few waves of Western communities looking at fermentation as some sort of panacea. And very exotic, I think that was mostly sort of hippies and back to the lenders or people who are outside of the system going, you know, we're going to eat these foods that are going to keep us super healthy. And our concept of tastes and what is disgusting or not disgusting has always been a way that we separate ourselves from each other. I think that it was a way for the white hippie cultures to say we're different from you. But I do think that at that time it was okay for people to say, “Oh, this is kind of gross, but it's healthy.” So I'm going to eat it. And then I think in the nineties, we had people like, Sandor Katz, who was a big, as he says, fermentation fetishist or revivalist. And you know he definitely spread the gospel of fermentation. And also [Katz] was interested in macrobiotics and Japanese fermentation was definitely like the gateway for white people. And I think in the early 2000s, and then, you know, going into, the recession, you know, people started to rethink their jobs and then they're like, I'm going to go do something, you know, with my hands and fermentation was the perfect thing, because it was just so, like, back-to-the-Land-y.

(music ends)

Ho: Like Alum, Miin sees just how important tv shows have been in repping for fermentation, like, you know, the humble pickle.

Chan: And you know, like Portlandia, I don't know if you ever saw that episode from 2012.

Ho: Yes!

Chan: So it was like peak pickle, you know, and I think there was even recently, a movie called an American pickle where they sort of made fun of, you know, the whole fermentation, shtick.

And then by 2014 you had like, Rene Redzepi and David Chang with their fermentation labs. And now it's like every gentrified neighbourhood restaurant is making their own kombucha or kimchi or some version of kimchi or sauerkraut. You know, it's really become a fine dining thing. And really, for me, like the peak thing is like the archetype is that white male chef.

Ho: And I definitely know a lot of these chefs.

Chan: Who's basically like, oh my God, I'm making garum, you know, which is this ancient Roman, you know, fermented fish sauce with sardine guts or whatever and also we're creating these new formats that never no one's ever heard of and we're using Koji, you know? It's not even virtue signalling. it's just sort of a way to, again, differentiate yourself and say that you are so smart and technical.

Ho: Fermentation is so cool now. Huge. It's even infiltrated Miin's country town.

Chan: I live in Castlemaine. It's a regional town, not a huge population, but our local IGA has like two long entire aisle length, shelves of different kinds of kombucha and fermented drinks. So I think that alone already shows you where it's gone.

Ho: But the more Miin and I spoke, the more I could see capitalist history repeating itself.

Chan: There's been a lot of purchasing of stakes in fermented food or fermented. product companies. That's the world around, like, not just here. You know, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, all these groups have been buying up artisanal brands and still staying they’re artisanal, because no one wants to drink sugary soft drinks anymore.

Ho: And these brands getting in on the fermentation trend are white-owned and operated. Coca Cola? Its headquarters are in Atlanta. It’s CEO is a white Brit named James Quincey. Pepsi? It’s CEO is a Spanish guy named Ramon Laguarta and is also based in America. And it's not just the industry white-owned companies are controlling.

Chan: White gatekeepers took the narrative when it comes to fermented foods and not just fermented foods from their own cultures, but from predominantly east Asian cultures and it became about satisfying white tastes. So I think there was a lot of poorly made kimchi, and there still is, and, you know, foods that were called by traditional names, but not actually made that way. So there's a lot of misrepresentation of, especially, BIPOC ferments. BIPOC, people can do this themselves with their own food. It's not just white people who do it. I think what's changed is suddenly now there's more of this chase for authenticity. So like oh, my product has the authentic taste, but it either doesn’t or you're taking up the space of someone who's been making it that way for a long time.

(reflective synth tones)

Ho: There's clearly an appetite for a traditional tasting product. Which means it has to be traditionally made. By people, pink gloves, taste memory, microbial transfer. But the crass thing about making something on a large scale in a capitalist society is that the people attached to the hands cost money. As does time. So machines can shred and mix. Instead of people painting each cabbage leaf with paste. But industrialization tries to engineer time out of the process. It's counter-intuitive since slowness is integral to fermentation. What is it without it?

Chan: I don't think you can be even a home fermenter without the process making you think about slowing down, first of all, and being patient and waiting, but also understanding a lot about aroma and texture and taste, and also just thinking about microbes and what role that plays in their life.

(music ends)

(casual beat)

Ho: I am but a simple creature. I only ever bought fermented foods for the flavour rather than the overall health benefits. I just loved what kimchi was on the most basic level— a spicy, garlicky, funky vegetable that I put on food to make it taste not so boring. Alum taught me that there is no right recipe for kimchi because every family is chasing the flavour of their ancestors. And like with most things that get commercialised, fermented products often lose their cultural connection once they get scaled up and marketed purely for its health benefits. My priorities for purchasing have always been about supporting small producers and sticking it to the man.

So my exploration into kimchi has only solidified that for me. And, stinking up the office with super delicious kimchi, that’s BIPOC-fermented and PhD-candidate approved… that’s a real bonus too.

(music ends)

(a bright dinner bell rings and reverberates)

Ho: Hang around after the credits for a geotjeori recipe. Don’t worry, it’s the gateway drug to kimchi.

(theme song: ‘Ylang Ylang’ by Rainbow Chan— inquisitive bassline begins)

Michelle Macklem: ​​Bad Taste is an SBS podcast. It’s hosted and produced by Jess Ho. Our Series Producer is Beth Atkinson-Quinton. Our producer is Beź Zewdie. Our sound designer is Nicole Pingon. Our editor is Zoe Tenannt. And I’m Michelle Macklem, the executive producer.

The very cultured SBS team is Rachel Sibley, Caroline Gates, Joel Supple and mix engineer Max Gosford. Our theme music is Ylang Ylang by Rainbow Chan. Our delectable podcast art is by Joanna Hu. Thanks to Alum Choi and Miin Chan.

We’re back next week with more funky flavours, so make sure you follow Bad Taste in your favourite podcast app so you get every episode freshly brewed, straight onto your device.

If you enjoyed the show and want to support us, don’t put a lid on it! Follow SBS and SBS Food and hit the share button to tell all your whole foods health friends what’s really up with fermentation.

(theme music ends)

(chimes)

(upbeat and fun jazz-inspired song)

Ho: This is a recipe for Geotjeori. You’ll need one small head of Napa cabbage washed and cut into bite sized pieces, one bunch of garlic chives, cut to 5cm lengths, salt, one cup of gochugaru, half a diced-onion, one diced fuji apple, 10 cloves of peeled garlic, 1 inch of peeled ginger, 3 tablespoons of Korean fish sauce, 1 tablespoon of Korean salted shrimp, 1 tablespoon of roasted sesame seeds.

Salt the cabbage thoroughly — a few tablespoons will do —  in a colander for 30 minutes.

Toss and leave for another 30. Rinse the salt off when it has wilted and squeeze out the excess moisture.

Place all other ingredients except for the garlic chives, gochugaru and sesame seeds into a blender with ¼ cup of water and blend till smooth.

Transfer this paste into a large bowl and stir in the gochugaru. Add the cabbage and garlic chives and toss until combined. Finish with sesame seeds and eat.

Ho: For the full recipe and instructions head to our website.

(jazzy outro to song with drum flourishes)

 

 

 

 


Share
Follow SBS Audio

Download our apps
SBS Audio
SBS News
SBS On Demand

Listen to our podcasts
An overview of the day's top stories from SBS News
Interviews and feature reports from SBS News
Your daily ten minute finance and business news wrap with SBS Finance Editor Ricardo Gonçalves.
Ease into the English language and Australian culture. We make learning English convenient, fun and practical.
Get the latest with our podcasts on your favourite podcast apps.

Watch on SBS
SBS On Demand

SBS On Demand

Watch movies, TV shows, Sports and Documentaries
That fabulous funk: The story of Kimchi | SBS Audio