Cucumber kimchi is made by turning a cucumber into a pocket and stuffing it with vegetables and kimchi paste. It’s delicious, and goes well with radish soup. I’ll show you how to make both of them for one perfect, well-balanced, low-calorie meal.
Ingredients:
- 6 cucumbers (10-12 kirby cucumbers)
- carrot (shredded ¼ cup)
- onion (¼ cup), green onions, Asian chives (2 cups)
- garlic, fish sauce
- hot pepper flakes, sugar.
Directions:
- Wash cucumbers and cut them in half. Make pockets out of cross slits. Don’t cut them all the way through. Put them in a big bowl
- Sprinkle a half cup of salt onto the cucumber pieces, mix them carefully, and wait for 30 minutes
- In a big bowl, place a quarter cup of fish sauce, a half cup of hot pepper flakes, 2 cloves of minced garlic and 1 tbs of sugar, and mix them with a spoon.
- Chop Asian chives 1 inch (about 2 cm) in length (2 cups) and cut 3 green onions diagonally as the same size as the chives, shred some carrot (1/4 cup) , slice the onion (1/4 cup) thinly and place all this into the mixture of the seasoning paste. Mix it up with a spoon.
- Wash the cucumbers and drain them. Stuff the seasoning paste into the slotted cucumber and put each cucumber into an airtight container. You can wear rubber gloves while stuffing, if you want to protect your hands.
- Right after making it, you can eat it. But keep the leftover kimchii in the refrigerator.
Radish soup with beef (for 2-3 servings)
Ingredients:
- 150 grams of beef brisket
- 2½ cups of sliced Korean radish
- 3 green onions
- 4 cloves of minced garlic
- ½ cup of fish sauce
- 6 cups of water
Directions:
- Prepare a pot and pour 6 cups of water
- Cut radish into diagonally and thinly (about 2½ cups) and put it into the pot and cook it over medium high heat
- Chop beef brisket (150 grams) into small chunks and mince 3 or 4 cloves of garlic
- When the soup starts boiling about 10 minutes after, add the chunks of beef and garlic and boil it about 15 minutes more over medium heat.
- Skim the bubbles or stuff off the surface and add some fish sauce(depending on your taste) and put chopped green onions and cook 5 or 10minutes more over medium heat
Barley rice
Ingredients:
- 1 cup of uncooked rice, 1 cup of barley and 2½ cup of water.
Directions:
- Rinse the mixture of rice and barley in a pot.
- Put 2½ cup of water and cover the lid of the pot.
- Heat it over high heat until it boils, and stir it with a spoon a few times.
- Simmer about 20 minutes over low heat
Hi Maangchi, I’m eating your stuffed cucumber kimchi right now (is that my nose running a little bit? LOL–I’m eating ti straight, without rice!) It’s delicious! I sprinkled a little sugar and rice vinegar over it as it’s freshly made. Mmmm. Thank you!
Just made the cucumber kimchi and it’s SO yummy!! Used the cucumbers from my garden of various sizes and it tastes so good.
I only had to use about 1/4cup of salt for the cucumbers, and even then I think it was too much. I’ll use less next time.
And it is a little bit salty, but just enough to go fantastic with some rice! YUM!
“Used the cucumbers from my garden of various sizes and it tastes so good.” oh my! I know how you feel! The cucumbers are so precious.
Hi Maangchi,
Is this cucumber kimchi method same like the side dish in korean restaurant? How long must ferment? I dont want to cook with the radish beef soup but just eat as side dish can?
Thks
I prefer fresh oisobagi kimchi, so I eat it right after making.
If you like to ferment it, keep it outside the refrigerator for a couple of days until it ferments.
Pls help…last night i made the oisobagi kimchi, but it was too salty, what can i do now? Throw it away or u have any rescue method? I couldnt find the fish sause u bought so i bought the thailand fishsauce, maybe it was to salty. This time i failed again….sigh….
There is no way fix salty oisobagi. Next time you make oisobagi, use less fish sauce then. Thai Fish sauce is good, too.
is it possible to substitute jajang for the fish sauce?
I dont have enough money to buy the fish sauce, nor do I use it enough.
no, no jjajang sauce in this recipe!
Jjajang (black bean paste):
http://www.maangchi.com/ingredients/black-bean-paste
sorry… i mean soy sauce.. I must have forgotten the name of soy sauce…
yeah, to make jjajangmyeon, you will need jjajang instead of soy sauce.
…lol I don’t want to make jjajangmyeon. I want to make raddish soup. I can easily buy jjajangmyeon at the store… Sorry about the confusion. ^^;;;;;
Annyeonghihaseyo Maangchi-sshi,
I luv Korean food n Kpop! I made this n it turned out extremely well!(if I may say so myself!! :P)This is definitely a keeper for me. Thanks!! I wonder if you can teach how to make the sweet rice in pumpkin please??(I saw it in Family Outing)Thank you :)
Would you leave your question here? I don’t know what it is.
http://www.maangchi.com/talk/forum/general-discussion
yum i like this one too. it had a Very fresh super crunchy taste to it. deliciousss.
Hi Maangchi,
Luv ur site!! I hav tried a lot of the recipes that u’ve posted n have been very successful!! I made the oisobagi n it’s one of my fav! I’ve seen on Family Outing(I’m a Kdrama/Kvariety addict!:p)n they were making some sticky rice then steaming it in a hollowed out pumpkin. I was wondering if u can kindly let me know it’s Korean name or post the recipe here pls? Thks so much! Merry Christmas n Happy New Yr!
I love your website! Thank You Maangchi, your food tastes great!!!
Hey Maangchi,
I’m going to prepare cabbage kimchi. Can I use the porridge for the cabbage kimchi vor cucumber kimchi, too?
Or is it too different?
Have you ever tried?
Greetings from Germany,
Cornelia
Ok, sry, I have found the answer -.-
what i do have are leeks and green onions, can i put the leeks instead? will it make a difference in taste?
You can use green onions instead of Asian chives. It’s still delicious!
maangchi,
i can’t find any chives, do i need to put it in? if so, what are other alternatives…?
Wow this is great. I love all kinds of kimchi.
I was just wondering if I need to stuff the cucumber or if I can just slice the cucumber into bite sized pieces and mix it with the kimchi sauce. Would slicing the cucumbers first make a difference?
hi maangchi! love ur recipes so much and i tried making these just now and after stuffing it, i put it straight to the fridge( in airtight container), about 5 hours later, i noticed there’s some juices coming out and i got rid of that right away (tasted it and it was salty)..is that normal? just curious.. anyway, thanks so much for you super great recipes..!! keep ‘em coming..=DD
Yes, it’s very normal. Don’t worry much about the liquid. When you salt your cucumber, the salt draws out water from the cucumber. When I make my oisobagi, I eat it in a few days. I don’t like to wait until it’s fermented.
Hi Maangchi ,
thank you for your great work and the time you spent to post those videos, regarding this recipe of the stuffed cucumber can I use soy sauce instead of fish sauce?
hmm, I never use soy sauce in oisobagi because it will darken my oisobagi, but as long as you don’t use fish sauce, why not?
I had cucumber kimchi at a restaurant and it was delicious. But their’s was sliced cucumber, not stuffed like what your recipe has. Do you know how to make it like that?
Give me more description about the cucumber side dish. There are a few different recipes for cucumber. Leave your question in the forum. Someone else may give you a good answer.
http://www.maangchi.com/talk/forum/general-discussion
Im was going to go out to dinner, change of plans!
Hi. how long can you keep the oisobagi in the refrigerator? I made a lot and want to eat it all before it goes bad.
I usually finish eating in a week. It doesn’t go bad but will be fermented. For some reason, oisobagi is more delicious when it’s fresh.
I didn’t add quite as much salt to my oi sobagi but I added the recommended amount of 3 crabs fish sauce. It turned out great and it’s pretty spicy. Now I feel accomplished.
cool! 3 crabs fish sauce is delicious.
Mine isn’t salty which is good. I just didn’t salt the cucumbers with 1/2 cup of salt. I don’t know the exact amount but it worked. I’ve been eating it and it’s definitely spicy. That hot pepper powder I found at the store is very hot indeed.
Hello Maangchi,
I made oisobagi! It was so delicious. Tonight I am going to make radish soup with beef tonight. Next week I am going to make kimchi. I just want to say thank you for this wonderful site!
Radish soup with beef is not only easy to make but also very delicious! Send me some photos to share your food photos with other readers!
Oi sobagi looks delicious. I’ll make it the next time I go to Zion Market.
i was wondring the cucumber soup that you make is like the one my mom makes but sometimes she put noodles in hers and i remember they were white, can you tell me what the noodles are called? i think they are japanese noodles.
oh, that must be “kongguksu”! (cold soy milk noodle soup)
The recipe will be posted very soon! It’s perfect dish for hot summer!
Hi,
I have follow your recipe, it is so easy, quick, and taste really good. I love it and will do again next time for my family.
Thanks for great recipe ;)
yayee! congratulation!
Hi Maangchi,
I made oisobagi with a different recipe and it is SO SALTY to the point of being bitter! Do you have any advice on how to lower the saltiness so that my batch will be edible? Thanks,
Julia
Julia,
For salty oisobagi,I don’t have much advice.
Hello there:-D I made oisobagi and left it outside in the room temperature to ferment a little with Glad wrap over it because I thought it is Kimchi kind so that’s what I was meant to do, by the end of the day I realised that the cucumber water drained to the bottom of the dish and the salty taste has gotten milder in the evening! However I am planning to store them in the fridge because apparently cucumbers goes off too quick! My parents have had 5 of them with Barley rice and it was an awesome awesome recipe!!! Thank you sooo much Maangchi!>____<
How did you know oisobagi and barley rice go well together. : )