Baechu kimchi

Baechu kimchi is Korean seasoned napa cabbage, eaten as a side dish and used in cooking as it becomes more sour. In the whole-leaf style called tongbaechu kimchi or pogi kimchi, the cabbage is salted and drained before a seasoning paste is spread between its leaves. Maangchi’s recipe combines a cooled glutinous-rice-flour porridge with garlic, ginger, onion, fish sauce, fermented salted shrimp and gochugaru, the red pepper flakes. Radish, carrot and scallions are mixed into the paste.^[1]

The seasoned cabbage can be eaten freshly made, while fermentation gradually gives it a sourer flavour. Maangchi recalls her mother preparing winter kimchi with friends: they shared the work of cutting vegetables and coating the leaves, then helped at one another’s homes.^[1]