RECOVERED RECIPE (Cucumber Kimchi, originally posted August 13, 2024) –
As many of you know, I lost the prior ten months of melinmac cooks posts in September. This is one of those posts. I’m now trying to rebuild. Luckily I save all of the pictures on my hard drive, but the content of the lost posts, including recipes, were not recoverable. At this point I’m not trying to recreate anything more than the recipes with pictures. Hopefully I’ll build it all back over time. Thanks for being here!
Cucumber Kimchi
Ingredients
- 1 pound fresh cucumbers
- 2 scallions
- 1 shallot
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 small knob of fresh ginger
- 1 T kosher salt
- 3 t granulated sugar (divided – 1 t for sweating the cucumbers, and 2 t for the dressing)
- 2 T gochugaru
- 1 T fish sauce
- 1 T tamari
- 2 t rice vinegar
Instructions
- Prep the veg – Peel and deseed the cucumbers. Slice the bigger cucumber halves vertically, then slice all of the spears across into ½-inch pieces. Chop the scallions, white and green parts. Peel and mince the shallot. Grate the garlic and the ginger. Set aside.
- Sweat the cucumbers – Massage 1 t of salt and 1 t of sugar into the cucumbers and set aside for at least 10 minutes.
- Make the sauce – In a medium bowl, combine 2 t of sugar, 2 T of gochugaru, 1 T of fish sauce, 1 T tamari, 2 t rice vinegar, and the grated ginger in a medium bowl and whisk vigorously to dissolve the sugar.
- Combine – Rinse the cucumbers under cold water and pat dry. Add the cucumbers, scallions, minced shallot, and garlic to the sauce. Mix with your hands and massage to ensure that the cucumber and shallots are evenly coated.
