I found this recipe on kimchi korea and wanted to try it out for myself.  The main problem I encountered when starting to read the recipe, is that it was hard to follow and a lot must be assumed to be common knowledge.  It IS of course in English, but the pictures are tiny and there seem to be certain things left out, that maybe a Korean reader would just know?  At any rate, I decided to give it a try. 

Oi Sobagi (stuffed oi kimchi)

"The most popular Kimchi during the spring and summer time. The crunchy texture and refreshing juice will make you feel wonderful. Oi Sobagi, fermented cucumber with other vegetables, easily goes sour, so prepare it in small quantities. Be careful when you put the cucumbers in the brine in order to maintain their firm texture. It will be more convenient for you to make three knife incisions so that the stuffing will not fall out. If you are preparing a large quantity of cucumber, just cut off the ends and cut the cucumber into quarters lengthwise. For a refreshing taste, do not use fermented fish. If you put some young radish between the layers, it will give you a better taste and more volume. Chopped Chinese chives are the most popular stuffing, but in the past they used waste pieces of cucumber at the King's Palace."    
 

Here is the recipe word for word from the website 

Ingredients

10 fresh cucumbers, 1/2 cup of salt(80g), 3 liters of water.
1 green onion root, 100g of Chinese chives, 1 garlic clove, 1 piece of ginger, 1/2 cup of cayenne pepper, 1 tablespoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of sugar

Preparation:

Choose appropriate cucumbers with slim, straight bodies and less seeds. Rub with salt and rinse thoroughly.

Cut each cucumber 5cm in length and make knife marks in the middle.Cut 3 times for thinner cucumbers and make cross incisions for thicker cucumbers.

Trim the rough ends of Chinese chives and wash them thoroughly under running water. Use both hands and rub when washing.

Prepare brine and soak the prepared cucumber for 3-4 hours.



Cut the Chinese chives 1cm in length. Chop green onions, garlic and ginger.

Test the cucumbers to see if they are completely marinated before drying them. If you want to dry
     them  quickly,  soak up all the moisture with paper towels.

Soak the cayenne pepper in water. Mix Chinese chives, garlic, ginger, salt, and sugar.

Fill the cucumbers with stuffing. Be careful, it might fall out.

Stack everything in a big container and press with something heavy. Rinse the bowl used to mix seasonings with brine and pour into the container.
 
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And now.....my attempt at Korean Spicy Stuffed Pickle Kimchi.

I will follow the recipe step by step as best as possible, but I have some modifications to make it easier to follow.

Step 1:  Choose appropriate cucumbers with slim, straight bodies and less seeds. Wash thoroughly under running water.

For my cucumbers, I decided to go to the Saman market down the street from me.  They have the same skinny cucumbers at the Korean market, but this one is much closer and I needed the cucumbers first thing in the morning.

The original recipe calls for a salt rub to wash the cucmbers, but I don't really see the point. You can try this if you like and let me know if you notice a difference, but I just I washed them under the faucet instead.  I also cleaned the blossom ends of the little scab that remains from the flower.

before                                                                       after









Step 2: Cut the ends off of each cucumber (halve longer ones to around 5cm) in length and split them open to accept the stuffing. 

According the original directions, It was not really clear exactly how I was supposed to be cutting the cucumbers.

In the photo on the website...



...the pickles appear to be split in half.  So was I supposed to split them and THEN make the knife marks on the inside?  Do the 3 cuts go on the outside?  I had no idea.  After some googling I decided on vertical crosses, separating the cucumber into fourths, even though the ones in the picture did not appear to be cut this way.  Were the "3 slices for thinner cucmbers like a peace sign?  I really could not tell so I decided to try several other cutting methods to see which ones were easier to stuff later.

This style is fairly common on many web recipes:

But this worked just as well and was easier to stuff.  Is this how the ones in the photo above were sliced?  It is hard to tell really.  Either way will result in excellent pickes- it's up to you.



This way was also very easy to stuff, and the thinner sections soak up the marinade faster if you are in a hurry for them to be ready...




From first reading the directions, this is what I mentally pictured. but I do not reccommend this way.

I also kept the little end pieces to add to the pickles at the end.  No sense in wasting them!










Note: I have re-arranged the recipe here.  It makes no sense to mess with the chives and onion yet!  The cukes have to soak for 4 hours!

Step 3: Soak the prepared cucumbers in salt water for 3-4 hours.

Here I decided that making a large 3L batch of brine was the traditional method.  Instead of dissolving a bunch of salt, I just salted my cucumbers dry and added the water after.

my cucumbers


salting them


placed in a bowl with the rest of the salt (I used a half cup total)


then I covered the salted cucumbers with water.  This will draw some moisture out of the vegetables- so do not skip this step. 


place a plate on top to weight them down


and cover them while they soak in the salty brine for about 4 hours.




While I was waiting for the soaking, I went over to the Korean market to get the rest of my ingredients.




They did not have "Chinese" chives, but they did have "Korean" chives so I decided that that was even better and bought them.  Also since I was curious about how I was supposed to have sliced my cucmbers, I bought some Oi Sobagi at the store too so I could see how they did it and also compare how they tasted...








they cut them vertically into an X shape.


And they tasted great- very spicy and a little bit sour, but mostly like fresh salted spicy cucumber.


But back to the recipe.  Now that I had my Korean chives, green onion, and ginger, I could continue...

Step 4: Trim the stem ends of Chinese chives and wash them thoroughly under running water. Use both hands and rub when washing.

Both the chives and the onion were extremely dirty and needed to be washed.  I weighed 100g out the chives dry so not to add water weight, but if you do not have a scale, they were just a small handful and totalled maybe 1/2 cup chopped at the most.









after washing I cut the stem ends off the chives.  I could have done this before washing, but then my cutting board would be full of dirt clods.  Nobody wants that.





Step 5: Cut the Chinese chives 1cm in length. Chop green onions, garlic and ginger.

This was all pretty straightforward, but since I had the chives I did not know if I was supposed to use the green part of the "green onion".  I tossed it and only used the white part.  you can do what you tastes good to you.  If you like onion- add it all!

It also does not say exactly how much ginger to use.  "1 piece" is pretty vague.  I cut a piece about the same size as my garlic, which was probably about right.  Make sure to chop it very fine.

cut and chop the onion


chop chives into 1cm pieces


trim garlic stem


peel ginger


chop ginger


chop garlic




Step 6: Test the cucumbers to see if they are completely marinated before drying them. If you want to dry them  quickly,  soak up all the moisture with paper towels.

I had no idea how to test them, but they were nice and springy, and it had been 4 hours, so I called them done and dried with a paper towel.  Note: Do NOT dump the soaking liquid at this point!  You will need it later.




Step 7:  Soak the cayenne pepper in water. Mix Chinese chives, garlic, ginger, salt, and sugar.

I used Korean red pepper flakes.  These are the same ones I use for my kimchi, so if you have a pepper that you like to use for kimchi, your pickles will taste very similar.  Powdered cayenne pepper will probably work just as well too.  "Use what you have", I say!

The recipe does not say, so I used equal parts water and red pepper.  1/3 cup each.

my ingredients


First I added the water and the red pepper

then I added the rest of the filling ingredients plus the sugar and salt

stirred

Here is the final stuffing

Step 8: Fill the cucumbers with stuffing. Be careful, it might fall out.


This was not as hard as it seemed since the stuffing was pretty sticky.  I tried all of my shapes, and the easiest was the one cut twice lengthwise into 2 V shapes.



but the others worked fine too.  Even the "traditional" ones split into fourths.

these worked too- but not as well as the ones above.









Step 9: Stack everything in a big container.  Rinse the mixing bowl used to mix seasonings with the brine you reserved in Step 6 and pour into the container to cover the cucumbers. Refrigerate and wait 2-3 days for the flavors to develop. 

You can weight them if you like to help speed up the fermentation, but mine turned out just as well without, so I don't think it is 100% neccessary.  The original recipe does not says so- but these MUST be kept cold.  I split mine into 2 batches and did both as a test, and the refigerator pickles were far superior. 

"Rinse" the mixing bowl and pour in the juice. You can add more pepper here if you like them extra spicy.












I covered these with the lid and placed in the refrigerator


the others I weighted with a plate and plastic wrap and placed in a cool dark place.

I wish I had not done this!  Let me show you why...


After 3 days I checked each batch to see how they compare to my store-bought ones.

The main thing I learned was that these MUST MUST be refrigerated!

Maybe if you were planning to eat them the same day or the next you could rush them by leaving them out,  but otherwise they will not be good if you leave them out for the full 3 days.

Here you can see that the color is very different on the ones I put in the pantry to ferment:

Pantry                                                        Fridge



The fridge ones on the right were much more crisp and retained thier dark green color.

Here is a side by side comparison of the final product.  The stuffing method really did not make much of a difference, so for ease of preparation, I'd almost reccommend just splitting them down one side and stuffing the pepper filling into the v shape.  This may even be the way they were done in the recipe sample picture, but the crossways ones seem to be a little more traditional, and the smaller cross sections, may help the marinade to penetrate faster.




The major problem with the ones left out to ferment is that they got very sour very quickly. They also got too mushy.  Although both were edible, The refrigerator ones were far superior and were even better on day 5, but I wouldn't push them much further than that.

In the end I was really happy with how these turned out.  They were salty, very spicy, and had a hint of garlic and ginger.  You probably don't even need the fancy chives, and could use the green part of the green onions in a pinch.

                      here are mine that I made               and here is one of my storebought ones

If you like spicy food and cucumbers, give this recipe a try!  I think you will like it :)

-cris {moscomment}