How To Make White Radish Kimchi

Although many people think of kimchi as a cabbage based dish, in Korea there are literally hundreds of different varieties of this delicious fermented food. Kimchi is the most famous banchan – a side dish that accompanies a main meal in Korea. This kimchi is known as kkakdugi.

The base for this recipe uses white radish. It’s white in colour and long and thick. It’s known as a winter radish and is very similar to daikon radish used in Japan and also known as mooli. These big winter radishes can usually be found in Asian stores. If you can’t get any of these, the kimchi also works with British radishes.

This recipe uses herbs for flavour. We used Korean celery as we had some growing in our garden – it’s so easy to grow and very hardy. But if you can’t get this, mustard greens or water parsley are also traditional ingredients.

Much of the spiciness comes from gochujaru chilli flakes. These can be found in Asian stores. You could use gochujang chilli paste instead – most mainstream supermarkets stock this.

White radish kimchi is a quick ferment – it should be ready within a week.

How To Make White Radish Kimchi

Chop the radish into bite-sized chunks. It’s nice if you can cut at an angle to make some interesting shapes.

Put the radish chunks into a bowl. Add the salt and cover with water. Leave for an hour or so and then drain.

Julienne the spring onion, mince the garlic and slice the Korean celery. Add to the radish.

Mix all the ingredients together. You could use a spoon but you can get a really good mix using your hands.

Place the mixture into a kilner jar and leave to ferment for a week. This is quite a dry ferment and shouldn’t result in too much build up of CO2, but we recommend burping the jar (open the lid and close it quickly again) every day.

Once fermentation is complete, place the jar into the fridge. The kimchi should last for several weeks. It makes a fantastic side dish.

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