Kkakdugi (Korean Radish Kimchi), Made with Monk Fruit Sweetener
International dishesVegetable DishesKorea1 hour 10 minutes, not counting fermentation time
Kkakdugi gives crunchy cubes of radish, deep red and turning more sour by the day. The difficulty is the salting stage, since under salted radish stays sharp and spoils easily.
The radish is rinsed exactly once after salting. It is ready when a cube feels soft in the hand and springs back under a press.
This batch weighs about 6kg, at roughly 46 calories per 100g. It is eaten over many meals, and the longer it sits, the more sour each piece becomes.
Method
Wash and peel 4.5kg of daikon radish, cut it crossways into slabs about a finger joint thick, then cut those into small cubes.
Put the radish in a basin, mix it with 100g of coarse salt, then add 90g of kOBE Monk Fruit Blend and toss well. Leave it 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on the size of the cubes. The radish is ready when a cube feels soft and springs back under a press. Rinse it once under water, then drain it in a colander, rinsing only that one time.
Pour 700ml of water into a pot, add 70g of glutinous rice flour and whisk it smooth, then set it over low heat and stir constantly until the mixture thickens and just simmers, then turn off the heat.
Stir 300g of coarse Korean chili flakes straight into the hot rice flour paste, mix well and set it aside to cool completely.
Wash 1 leek and slice it finely, cut 1 onion into squares and blend 1 pear or apple to a puree.
Tip the cooled chili paste into a basin, add 100g of salted shrimp, 100ml of Korean anchovy fish sauce, the blended pear, 150g of minced garlic, 15g of minced ginger, 45g of kOBE Monk Fruit Blend and the leek. Mix well, then add the drained radish and toss it through.
Add another 50g of coarse chili flakes and 20g of fine chili powder and mix again so the paste clings to each cube and the color holds after a few days.
Pack the radish into containers, press it down by hand, seal the lids and keep it in the fridge.
Tips
Without glutinous rice flour, cook glutinous rice until sticky and blend half a small bowl with a little water, and the mixture still binds well.
When Korean radish is hard to find, Vietnamese daikon radish works, and the October to December season is the crispest and sweetest.
Salted shrimp and Korean anchovy fish sauce are sold at Korean grocery stores, and traditional Vietnamese fish sauce stands in at 50 ml because it is saltier.
Pack the jar tight so everything sits under the liquid, leave it out for a day to ferment, then move it to the fridge.
Keep a little of the radish liquid drawn out during salting, which makes the kimchi paste thicker.
Need kOBE Monk Fruit Blend?
The recipe above is sweetened with kOBE Monk Fruit Blend, measured 1:1 like sugar. See the product page or send us a message.