Korean · sauce/condiment

Kkakdugi (Cubed Radish Kimchi)

Kkakdugi (Cubed Radish Kimchi) reads funk & ferment 7.4, umami 7.3 and salinity 7.0 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Korean sauce/condiment, about 205 hr 23 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

The measured notes (of 18)

Funk & Ferment 7.4 · Umami 7.3 · Salinity 7.0 · Sweetness 5.5 · Marine & Briny 5.4 · Allium 4.5 · Warm Spice 2.1 · Herbaceous 2.1 · Sourness 2.1 · Heat 2.1 · Richness 1.3 · Earthy 0.9 · Smoke 0.8 · Bitterness 0.6

What's in it (11)

Time & effort: about 205 hr 23 min (33 min active) · effort: involved

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 30 kcal, 1.1 g protein, 0.3 g fat, 6.5 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat · Contains seafood — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (5 steps)

  1. Cut the radish into cubes of genuinely equal size. This sounds fussy and is not: kkakdugi is judged entirely on texture, and cubes of different sizes ferment at different rates, so a jar of mixed sizes gives you some pieces still raw-hard and some already collapsing.
  2. Toss the cubes with the coarse salt and the 25 g of sugar and leave them 30 to 40 minutes, stirring twice. Winter radish is dense and sweet and needs the sugar as much as the salt to draw its water out. Drain, but keep 60 ml of the pink-tinged brine that has collected; it goes back into the paste and carries the radish's own flavour.
  3. Stir the gochugaru into the reserved brine and let it sit 10 minutes until it swells and darkens. Add the anchovy sauce, saeujeot, garlic, ginger and the remaining 15 g of sugar and mix into a loose paste.
  4. Fold the drained radish and the scallions through the paste with a gloved hand until every cube is evenly red. Pack into a jar, pressing down firmly so the cubes settle and the brine rises over them, and leave 3 cm of headspace.
  5. Ferment at room temperature 1 to 2 days, until the jar hisses when you open it and the liquid has gone slightly fizzy, then refrigerate at least a week before eating. Young kkakdugi is crunchy and sweet; at three or four weeks it turns properly sour and its brine is the thing people drink alongside seolleongtang. Radish kimchi ferments faster than cabbage kimchi, so watch it more closely in a warm kitchen.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.