I watched Bobby Flay’s kimchi making on his show, Boy Meets Grill on the Food Network channel today.
All I can say is OMG OMG! If you guys saw it together with me, I’m sure we would all make a loud voice “OMG.”
First he chopped the whole cabbage crosswise, without first splitting it lengthwise, and put all the pieces of cabbage in a large bowl. He skipped the salting process.
Then he made sauce for kimchi using his food processor. He poured dark soy sauce into the food processor which made my eyes open wide. We don’t use soy sauce in kimchi except for fresh geotjori style salads. I thought, “hmm, he may make fresh geotjeori style kimchi.” I sat back on my couch comfortably again.
Then he squirted vinegar! Oops! Kimchi’s sour taste comes from the fermentation process, not from vinegar! He made me sit straight up again. He forced the cabbage to get sour with vinegar!
Ironically, in the direction in the recipe, it says, “Cover and refrigerate for 2 to 3 days before serving to let the cabbage wilt and the flavors meld.” Do you know what’s wrong with it? I think everybody who makes homemade kimchi can figure it out. It should be “… to let the cabbage ferment.” If he made geotjori style salad, he should say, “serve it right after making it.”
Oh wait, not yet done, right after that, I could not believe to see he poured lots of vegetable oil into it! If my mother, sisters, friends see this, they will be so shocked!
Hello, hello, Food Network! Are you crazy?
I can’t imagine some oil floating on my kimchi juice! You should do some more research before demonstrating how to cook ethnic food!
I know everybody deserves to enjoy his or her own variation of a recipe. They can modify any recipe to their taste, but some essential things can’t be changed. Imagine someone making Italian spaghetti sauce with tomatoes, ground beef, hot pepper paste, hot pepper flakes, and a little bit of fish sauce! : )
You can be creative to make your own recipe by using kimchi such as kimchi hot dog, kimchi pizza, kimchi taco, but you can’t put oil and vinegar in kimchi.
One scene of the show had Bobby Flay shopping in a huge Korean grocery store with a Korean speaking woman. How come she didn’t stop him from putting oil in the kimchi? Maybe she left after shopping with him, then I can understand.
Take a look at all the good kimchi photos sent by my readers posted on my website! Food Network people should do more research before releasing some ethnic food recipe.
I think in this recipe at least, Bobby Flay should change the title of the food to “My version of kimchi salad,” which is much more accurate, because this isn’t the kind of kimchi that I know.
For somebody being called a “celebrity chef” I think Bobby Flay has the celebrity part down but needs to work on the chef part. His “Throw Down” show is just an place to embarrass himself. I don’t know what kind of food he knows how to cook, but he should just stick with that style of food.
He used vinegar in kimchi?! I think a fermentation fairy died when he did that.
No wonder No Reservations’ Anthony Bourdain makes fun of Bobby Flay and Rachael Ray! Ick! I cannot even imagine oily kim chi!
you know what? i think that the foodnetwork should just get you a spot and make korean food for them.
Right on, Deborah!! Maangchi should show them what real food is!
i’m in complete shock and horror after reading that. i’m also not at all surprised. i watch the food network very regularly and i find that most western chefs are absolutely no good when it comes to truely understanding the different asian cuisines. i watched anthony sedlak (a new canadian chef) on his show, the main, totally botch “asian cuisine”. he was doing a lot of thai inspired dishes (which isn’t the only “asian”) and adding seasame oil and other ingredients and cooking styles that seemed to be from a whole other asian type of cuisine! i was beside myself in rage as i watched him take “asian” ingredients and turn them all together in his cauldron of “asian tastes”. i am certain that a number of times i threw up in my mouth when i saw the absurd things he was doing… which is probably the same thing that maangchi (and others) were doing as they watched bobby flay make “korean kimchi”.
the only chef who got it right for his version of ‘asian food’ (i can’t remember the episode name) was chef michael smith. he also coincidently is the chef who is the host of ‘chef abroad’.
anyways, i think that rant took shape by accident… it’s something that i was actually complaining about for WEEKS after i saw it. ;) good that other people also think the same thing!
Wow, that’s crazy. I know little about kimchi, but if you’re going to have a tv show about it (Hello, Bobby!) you should probably do your research. That sounds like the most disgusting “kimchi” I’ve ever heard of!
Hey Maanchi, I love this blog entry and I totally agree with what you’re saying about people making their own versions of food and making it seem like it’s authentic! I love your cooking show too :)
I like this blog. That’s how I feel watching these westerner chef cook Thai foods. I saw a recipe for green curry with lime in it…yes, I did say OMG, too! And funny you should mention fish sauce in spaghetti. I know just a person who do that…my mom and guess what! my husband (Canadian) said OMG!
The weirdest thing is, his kimchi recipe wasn’t the first I’ve seen that has vinegar in it. Where do people get this crazy idea vinegar goes into kimchi? It’s so bizarre. I’ve also seen kimchi recipes with Sriracha in it. So wrong.
I am going to try and find it on youtube just for the sake of shocking myself ^_^
I’m glad that I read how to make it here first. I might have not known any better and wondered why his tasted so weird ㅋㅋㅋ
I love the Food Network but I have to agree, when I see them cooking ethnic foods I stay around to watch almost because I’m expecting them to botch it horrifically and I want to laugh at it. That has always been my problem with the food network – for as many viewers as they are trying to reach they fail horribly at being anywhere near inclusive of multiple cultures. My mom is Korean (that makes me half ^_^) and we would always be so shocked at Rachael Ray’s “ethnic” cooking. Once she was making lo mein and used spaghetti noodles in it. We were embarrassed for her.vI absolutely agree they need to do their research before they show people a very very wrong way of cooking ethnic foods!
Bobby Flay has no respect for Asian foods. I saw one episode of his “Throwdown” show were he went against this Thai lady and tried to make a better Pad Thai. His sauce wasn’t dark enough, so instead of actually doing some research on how to make pad thai, he just dumps a whole bunch of soy sauce in it. The judges were like “is there soy sauce in this?” So kimchi is not the only thing he has ruined. He should stick to tex mex and steaks.
agreed. bobby flay should just stick to what he knows.
I think we shud all log into bobby flay`s website and give him some feedback at his bastardized, unresearched, shameful attempt at kimchi.
I hate any chef or restaurant that tries to change what needs no changing, call it `fusion` and then charge an arm and a leg for it.
Bobby Flay’s attempt was horrible!
That’s not kimchi.
Other food network stars have tried to imitate it.
Rachael Ray tried to make bulgogi once… omg terrible.
She took flank steak and marinated it… then she cooked the meat medium rare. Koreans don’t eat beef that is medium rare.
Check out her recipe.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/korean-barbecued-flank-steak-on-hot-and-sour-slaw-salad-recipe/index.html
I’m completely in agreement with Maangchi here.
I’m from the South of the US, and was raised by parents from the rural South of the US. I know more than a bit about barbecue. Ive watched this guy over the years on the Food Network pass of some utter aberrations as “barbecue”. I’m not surprised to hear that he threw together some weird concoction and used the word “kimchi” to describe it.
Look to PBS and similar networks for reliable ethnic cooking shows, not the Food Network. Leave that to the NYC yuppies and Emeril fanatics.
Maangchi, have you seen Gwyneth Paltrow’s recipe for “Bibimbop”?
http://goop.com/newsletter/47/en/
yeah, I saw it. She is cute! Her bibimbap looks good!
I saw this too, it was cute. I love here weekly newsletter. And, who does not like Gwyneth Paltrow.
I have to agree with Maangchi here.
This guy has a habit of preparing “ethnic” dishes that disrespect the true ethnic dishes they’re supposedly derived from. He made his reputation (somehow?!?) as a “barbecue” chef, but some of the things he passes off as bbq are utterly foreign to the true thing. I’m a Southerner, born of many generations of Southerners, and I know what true Southern barbecue is. It’s very simple, slow cooking of the cheaper (therefore tougher) cuts of pork over wood embers. Flay concocts weird recipes that bear no resemblance whatsoever to true Southern barbecue and tries to pass them off as such. It’s offensive.
He should just be content to present himself as what he is: an arrogant yuppie “chef” from the Food network who takes impermissible liberties with traditional ethnic recipes.
At the very least, he could have called that dog’s breakfast “Napa cabbage salad” or something similar.
That’s disgusting, but unfortunately it’s not the first time Food Network has butchered Korean cooking. Tyler Florence did an episode of Food 911 once (is it even on anymore) where he answered an American-born Korean’s request for Korean dishes. EVERYTHING was done horribly wrong. It was just awful to watch. His kimchi was perhaps even more butchered than Bobby Flay’s. He used the same red pepper flakes that you put on top of pizza, he then added some sirracha sauce to make it hot, and I think his had soy in it too. Gag, retch, hurl! That got me thinking…is Korean food that “rare” and unused that even top chefs know nothing about it, or are the chef’s on food network just as un-authentic with all their recipes, and we just don’t know about it because it doesn’t overlap our own cultural background? What was funny about the ep with Florence was that the Korean woman was saying how delicious it was (probably for the camera only or was instructed to do so by the producers), but her husband wasn’t given the same instructions. He didn’t say anything offensive, but his eyes kept widening everytime he ate something, and he had this “I’m going to throw up now” expression on his face. All his answers were non-commital grunts and smiles. LOL Let that be a lesson to all of us: all those times guests “ooh” and “ahh” over a celebrity chef prepared meal could be 100% stages.
Either way, I’ve only seen one recipe that even came close to authentic Korean. It was when Rachel Ray created a quasi-Korean steak dish. She used flank steak and cooked whole until medium rare, but at least she did use traditional Korean seasonings such as sesame oil and fresh cut garlic.
You’re going to say OMG to my comment now. I just stumbled onto your site earlier today and got super excited about making kimchi. Well I’m up in the Colorado mountains. Since I had no fish sauce or even soy sauce to substitute, I used a little white wine vinigar….I thought maybe it was necessary for the pickling process. Oh well, guess I’ll just have to see how it turns out. Cabbage is salted and paste is made…fingers crossed!
OMG! I hope your drunken kimchi turns out great! : )
My fingers are crossed! Whatever you make and eat in the mountains, it will be tasty!
I remember when I saw this episode a couple of years ago. I had the same first reaction. I think considering how many variables he did in the recipe, it was dishonest to call it kimchi.
Bobby Flay could have called it a “Korean-style cabbage salad” or something like that most people would have thought it was an interesting, creative Korean fusion recipe but to call that dish “kimchi” was false advertising.
That’s sick. I’ve had to remake kimchi at least 20 times before I came up with a recipe that I loved. It did not include any of the above! Bobby flay does mostly grilling though doesn’t he? I’ve never seen him do korean food before so that’s strange in it’s own, there must’ve been some sort of request for that one. I’m a fan of food network too, but generally ignore all asian foods being prepared unless I want an extreme american twist.
on another note, even if it is supposed to be an inspired salad, shouldn’t the kimchee itself be correct?
This reminds me of my college cafeteria that was so good Except for one meal. They used to have an asian meal they’d serve, but they called it something like bulgogi stirfry. The beef was very thick and thicker than most mexican fajita meat I’ve had, not tender at all. And even worse the beef wasn’t very flavorful at all. I can make a better stirfry and know a much more flavorful korean marinade for it. The sad thing is they must’ve had positive reactions to it from someone because they made it several times a year.
The worst thing is that Kimchi isn’t even that difficult to make!
eww kimchi with vinegar and oil?
i can NOT imagine!! 이상해! lol i think that’s right
anyways
i think he totally ruined the traditional way of making kimchi
I think you are being too kind with how far it is changed, it is worse than just adding some fish sauce and hot pepper paste to an italian/italian american sauce (flakes could be added, and are sometimes)….much worse.
AGH! OMG indeed! I don’t even know how that’s related to kimchi. It should be called Asian cabbage salad or something. What a misrepresentation..
bobby flay has a history of ruining practically every “ethnic” food. i have to applaud you for calling him out on it.
We used to enjoy FoodNetwork, but for the most ethnic cuisine and even most recipes now, we prefer getting it from food blogs such as yours and others… much more authentic! BTW, do you have your own kimchi refridgerator? We saw one for the first time at a Korean friends house..it was amazing!
Well the website calls it “Kimchee” Salad with the kimchee in quotes.
So its more of a kimchee inspired salad and I guess thats why they have oil and vinegar in there, but I didn’t see the show to see how they present it there.
I am a Korean-American mother of two grown-up children who regularly makes traditional kimchi and enjoys cooking authentic Korean food. Through my Google Alert for Korean Food, I ran into this issue with Bobby Flay and just wanted to share my thoughts.
As Joshua K pointed out, Bobby Flay called it kimchi “salad.” So I do not think he deserves all these criticism. In fact, Koreans do eat fresh made Kimchi like salad (called Gutjuri) without fermentation. As with most of Korean dishes, there are many variations of Gutjuri, but the typical ingredients used to make the Kimchi tasty without fermentation include vinegar, sugar and oil (traditionally sesame oil). It’s actually a common dish in Korea and favored for refreshing taste. Besides, I personally think it’s a great thing for the globalization of Korean food that more and more top/popular chefs bring Korean influence to their menu items.
Globalization is fine but it should not eliminate identity. Just because the ingredients include napa and red pepper, that chefs should loosely use the word Kimchi. We, koreans, should identify and teach properly to non-koreans and not just accept the ignorance.
In my experience, I have not met any korean ladies use vinegar with napa cabbage. The Gutjuri that I know that uses vinegar is with other leafy lettuces. Certainly, not napa.
Ditto. The last thing I want is a Korean equivalent of Taco Bell serving vinegared “kimchi.” Especially as kimchi is so closely bonded with Korean cultural identity.
Thing is…there’s so many quick and authentic kimchi dishes out there that I wonder if Flay truly meant to bring a more Americanized flavor to the meal or if he was just too lazy to do the research. Some of the simplest ones use ingredients that (other than the red pepper) one can find at almost any local Walmart or grocery store.
I totally agree. It’s important to distinguish terms. Look at what happened with the confusion between sushi and sashimi. It wasn’t corrected in the 1970s, and the confusion persisted for nearly 30 years. There’s still confusion, though, many now know the correct terminology. (More on this later.)
As I understand it, kimchi is a spiced pickle. Pickles are different from salads. Nobody would call saurkraut, which is a pickled cabbage, a salad. Nobody should misidentify kimchi as anything but a spicy pickle. There are different kinds of kimchi, and when cooks like Flay misidentify kimchi as “flavored cabbage”, it will create confusion.
If he was making what was fundamentally gutjuri, he should say he’s making gutjuri.
But he wasn’t making gutjuri – he was just making things up based on his misunderstandings – but it sounds closer to gutjuri.
Now, back to the sushi issue. Sushi became popular in Japan in the early 19th century, and took its current form in the mid 20th century. It was imported to America in the late 1960s. (So it’s a pretty new food.)
Americans misidentifed “sushi” as raw fish, because that was the most unusual thing about the food. Sushi is correctly defined as seasoned rice, almost always with something else on it, or in it. The term for raw fish is “sashimi.”
So, when someone encountered sushi without fish, they were surprised. Then, I’d have to explain that the terminology Americans were using is completely incorrect. Sushi is seasoned rice. Then, after that, everything makes sense to them — there’s a lot of sushis with cooked foods, and no meat at all. There are sushis that are served in bowls. With the correct understanding, things like Korean sushi and Taiwan-style sushi (and now, American sushi) make sense, too.