Bomdong Nabak-kimchi (Spring Cabbage Water Kimchi) · Kang Soon-ui

Make the stock first: boil 50 g of kelp and 10 dried shiitake in 2 litres of water for 15 minutes, then strain it and let it cool. You need 1½ cups; the rest keeps.

💡 It must go in COLD. Warm stock in a water kimchi starts the ferment before the seasoning is even balanced, and warm brine turns cabbage soft and sour fast.

Cut the radish and the bomdong into 2 cm squares — 나박나박, flat and squarish, which is what gives this kimchi its name.

Make the pulguk: whisk 1 tbsp glutinous rice flour and 1 tbsp buckwheat flour into 1½ cups of water, then heat it gently, stirring, until it thickens to a thin, pourable paste. Cool it completely.

💡 Buckwheat alongside the rice is her signature and it is not decorative — buckwheat gives a lighter, cleaner body than rice alone, so the broth is drinkable rather than gluey. Stir constantly or it catches on the base.

Put ½ cup of chili powder into a sieve set over 2 litres of water and work it through with a spoon, so the colour and flavour wash out and the coarse grounds stay in the sieve. You now have 고춧물, chili water.

💡 This is the step that separates a master's water kimchi from a home one. Chili powder tipped straight in never dissolves — it floats, sinks and gets stuck between your teeth. The sieve buys you a clear red broth for two minutes of work.

Into the chili water go the fish sauce, 1½ cups of the cooled pulguk, the sliced ginger, the minced garlic, 1½ cups of the cooled stock and the stevia. Stir it all together.

Now season with the coarse salt — 1½ tbsp is her figure, but taste as you go.

💡 Salt LAST, after the fish sauce and stock are already in — both bring their own salt, and their strength varies by brand. A water kimchi broth should taste very slightly saltier than you want it, because the vegetables will draw some out overnight.

Put the cut radish and bomdong into your container and pour the broth over them.

Scatter in the chives cut to 3 cm and the diagonally sliced green and red chilies. That is it — the kimchi is made.

💡 Chives and chilies go in last and raw. They are the top notes; simmer or bruise them and the broth turns muddy green instead of staying clean and pink.

Cover it and leave it to ripen 1–2 days — her figure — at room temperature.

💡 Two days in a warm kitchen is not the same as two days in a cold one. Watch it, not the clock: tiny bubbles rising when you tap the container mean it is working.

Taste it. When the broth has turned faintly tart and fizzes a little on the tongue, move it to the fridge.

💡 That tingle is the finish line. Leave it out past it and the ferment runs away — the bomdong goes limp and the broth gets sour rather than refreshing.

Serve it cold in small bowls, broth and all — it is drunk as much as eaten, alongside rich or fried food.