Help Me Recreate This Korean Cabbage Soup! Good Questions

Q: I discovered Korean food when I was living in Qingdao, China, since so many Koreans live there. It quickly became my one of my favorite cuisines. My coworker's wife made this amazing cabbage soup. It was cold, and seemed to be the draining liquid from making a quick-type kimchi. It was salty, cold, a little spicy. I just bought a Napa cabbage to make it but can't find anything on Google about how to make it or what its name is.

Any help would be SO appreciated on this tenth anniversary of my being "home" here — when I'd really prefer to be there!

Sent by Joan

Editor: Joan, that sounds delicious. Can anyone help Joan out? Do you know this soup, or at least one that sounds like it?

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(Image: Emily Ho)

Comments (13)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongchimi

two blogs I follow have posts on the kind of kimchi I think you're referring to:

http://www.koreaforniancooking.com/2010/07/water-kimchi-dongchimi-recipe.html

http://aeriskitchen.com/2010/12/korean-radish-water-kimchi/

is it nabak kimchi soup? http://www.koreataste.org/lang/en/en/food-en/recipes-en/nabak-kimchi/

Ask Maangchi!

She has a water kimchi recipe for yul moo kimchi: http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/yeolmu-mulkimchi

I could be wrong, but try doing a search on dongchimi or mool (water) kimchi.

Does it have any noodles in it? Or only meat and vegetables? My husband is Korean, and he and my mother-in-law cook Korean soups all the time using her homemade kim chi. Here is a recipe for a hot kim chi soup that you eat with rice: http://www.theblindcook.com/2010/09/22/spicy-korean-stew/. The only cold soup I know of is naeng myun. Here is a recipe, but I haven't made this myself since we buy the pre-made kinds from the frozen section at the Korean store: http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/naengmyeon. If both of these are still not what you're looking for, let me know, and I can ask my husband. Good luck. I just had some homemade Korean seafood pancake today. Yum.

sounds like dongchimi, which is a clear cabbage kimchi soup dish, but it isn't quick. it needs to be fermented like any other kimchi.

If the OP is referring to Dongchimi, oh my, I would only wish you a good luck. Dongchimi may look simple but it's one of the hardest kimchi to pull it off. An ideal dongchimi should be slightly sweet, slightly sour, but should be very refreshing with this distinct complex flavor of dongchimi. It is a dish that I never eat/drink in the US because no Korean restaurant in either coast knows how to properly cook, and even in Korea, I only eat/drink the one made by my mom's sister (who's one of the best cooks we know) or go to those few restaurants that specialize in the dish. The reaosn why it's so hard to do it well is because you have to be able to pull all the mild flavors from radish, nappa cabbage by fermenting it in the right temperature and humidity for a long time. Anyways, good luck to you!

thanks everyone!!!
it is almost more of a cold drink than a soup. no meat or veg, just a salty, sweet, refreshing clear liquid that you throw a few chilis into. i'm going to look at all these links right now!

ok ... gulp ... i'm going to try the dongchimi recipe. i think that's it!

@ tumba

maybe you should try the corner place in los angeles. known far and wide for their dong chi mi.

you may have a hard time finding a recipe. a lot of the koreans in china are originally from north korea, and those recipes are almost impossible to find.. and/or many korean recipes were adapted to fit the chinese palate.. good luck with your search, i hope you find something close...

IF you want Korean cabbage then here is one recipe for starters, and you can vary it by Korean types of spices that you like. This is a simpler one. You can use water, or vegetable or beef broth if you wish, but even then I'd recommend adding water to that as needed. I personally prefer distilled water in nearly a 100 percent of of my cooking.
http://koreanfood.about.com/od/soupsandstews/r/Baechugook.htm