Prep Time: 35 minutes
Cook Time: 8 hours
Ingredients:
- 10 Korean, pickling or kirby cucumbers*, with ends sliced off
- 1/4 cup salt
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 cup kochukaru (Korean chili pepper)
- 1/2 cup Asian chives, cut into 1 inch pieces
- 1/4 cup fish sauce or liquid from brined sauce
- 1/3 cup shredded carrots
- 2 Tbsp sugar
Preparation:
- Wash cucumbers.
- Place end of cucumber on cutting board and cut in half down length, without cutting through to the end.
- Rotate the cucumber and make another cut without going through the end, so that the second cut is perpendicular to the first.
- Fill a large bowl with water and dissolve the ¼ cup salt into it.
- Fully submerge cucumbers in salt bath for 30 minutes.
- While cucumbers are marinating, mix all other ingredients together in a bowl to make the stuffing.
- After 30 minutes, remove cucumbers from salt bath but do not rinse.
- Fill each cucumber between the connected spears with spicy stuffing (but do not rinse out bowl).
- Place cucumbers next to each other in a glass container.
- Fill seasoning bowl with about a cup of water, dissolving remaining seasonings in bowl.
- Pour liquid over cucumbers until they are almost submerged.
- Cover with a tight-fitting lid and store at room temperature for 8-12 hours.
- Move cucumber kimchi to the refrigerator.
*You can find small Korean cucumbers at Asian markets. If you can't find kirby cucumbers, you can use another unwaxed thin-skinned cucumber.
