Cabbage & radish kimchi (baechu + kkakdugi, made separately and fermented for a couple of days) alongside quick cucumber kimchi (oi sobagi, ready same-day). Adjusted to skip sugar and fish sauce — soy sauce carries the salt and umami instead.
No kimchi photos in the collection yet — diagrams for now, will swap in real photos when we have them.
No sugar, no fish sauce — soy sauce does the salt/umami job here. Taste the raw paste before mixing in: it should be punchy and quite salty, since it's spread thin across a lot of vegetable.
Quarter the cabbage lengthwise through the core, then cut into rough chunks. Toss generously with salt between every layer, in a large bowl. Toss again every 30 minutes. It's ready when the leaves are floppy and have released a lot of water. Rinse 2–3 times and squeeze out as much water as you can.
Peel the daikon (the skin is bitter), then cut into ~2cm cubes. Toss with a good pinch of salt and leave for 30 minutes. It'll release water — drain it off, but don't rinse. Pat dry if needed.
Mix the gochugaru, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, and spring onions together — no need to cook it. Taste and adjust; it should be assertive, since it has to season everything it touches.
Split the paste roughly 60/40 between cabbage and radish — cabbage gets the larger share. Mix each vegetable with its portion separately (gloves help with the gochugaru staining). Pack tightly into jars, pressing down as you go so there are no air gaps.
Leave at room temperature — warmer kitchens (22–25°C) need only ~1–1.5 days, an average room (18–21°C) closer to 2. Taste after 24 hours. Burp the lid once or twice a day to release fermentation gas, and press the vegetables down if the top layer looks dry (kimchi paste clings rather than pooling as a liquid brine, so this keeps everything in contact). Radish is usually ready slightly ahead of cabbage. Refrigerate once it tastes right.
No small cucumbers on hand? Standard/English cucumbers work — just halve or quarter them lengthwise instead of X-scoring (see Method step 1), and count on roughly 3 standard cucumbers per 6 small ones by volume.
Same dietary adjustment as the cabbage & radish batch — no sugar, soy in place of fish sauce. Makes a thick, small-batch paste; it doesn't need to stretch far since it's packed directly into the cuts rather than tossed through a big bowl of veg.
Small cucumbers: cut an X lengthwise from both ends, deep enough to open up like a book, but stop short of slicing all the way through — the halves should stay joined at the base.
Standard/English cucumbers: the X-cut doesn't hold together well at this size, so just halve (or quarter, if thick) lengthwise all the way through. If the core has gone watery and seedy, scrape it out with a spoon — you want a shallow trough to pack the paste into rather than a solid block.
Rub salt into the scored cuts and let the cucumbers sit for 15–20 minutes — just enough to soften slightly and draw out a little moisture. Pat dry before stuffing.
Mix the gochugaru, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, and spring onion into a thick paste. Stir in the julienned carrot if using, or keep it separate to layer in while stuffing.
Small cucumbers: gently pack the paste into the scored slits, pressing to open them slightly as you go. Standard cucumbers: spread the paste generously over the cut faces and press the pieces back together (or just stack them cut-side up in a container and spoon paste over each layer). Don't overfill — a firm coating is enough.
Eat right away at room temperature, or chill for 1–2 hours for a crisper bite. Unlike the cabbage and radish batch, this doesn't keep well — best within 2–3 days, so make small batches and eat it fresh.