I have come across many different recipes for kkakdugi and a variety of different spellings (e.g. kakdooki, khakdugi, et etcetera). What draws me to this particular ferment is the ease of putting it together and the ease of altering the recipe to match ingredients that are seasonally available or to address the tastes and preferences of the people that I’m going to serve it to. For example, my wife maintains a largely vegetarian diet and loves a green onion and ginger-forward version, like the recipe that I share here. I enjoy adding fish sauce and/or salted shrimp for the complexity and umami it brings to the finished product. While I used apples in this version, I think that it’s even better with pears when they are fresh and available in the fall here in Washington State. I always include a base of cubed daikon and some garlic, but the rest of the recipe can be adjusted with consistently good outcomes.
This particular recipe has largely been taken from “The Joy of Pickling, 250 Flavor -Packed Recipes for Vegetables and More from Garden of Market – Revised Edition”, 2009 by Linda Ziedrich. See pages 64 and 65. I’ve long been influenced by Ellix Sandor Katz’s books including Wild Fermentation (2003) & The Art of Fermentation (2012), and more recently by The FarmHouse Culture Guide to Fermenting (2019) by Kathryn Lukas and Shane Peterson.
Kkakdugi
Ingredients
- 1650 g daikon radish peeled, cut into 1/2 to 3/4 inch cubes 3lb 10oz
- 300 g apples, peeled, cored, and shredded 10.5 oz
- 25 g garlic, peeled and minced ~10 medium cloves
- 20 g ginger, peeled and minced ~ 3/4 oz
- 6 scallions cleaned and sliced into thin rounds
- 1.5 tbsp pickling salt
- 2 tsp sugar
- 3 tbsp Gochugaru I used Taekyung Red Pepper Powder - coarse grind
Instructions
- In a non-reactive bowl, mix all of the ingredients. Let the bowl stand, covered with a cloth, for 6-12 hours.
- Transfer the contents of the bowl, including all liquids, to your fermenting vessel. If using a water-seal crock, firmly push down the daikon cubes so that the liquid rises to cover them, place your weights on top of the kkakdugi, put the lid on, and fill the water seal with water. If using mason jars, firmly push down the daikon cubes so that the liquid rises to cover them and either add your pickling weight to keep them submerged or simply make sure they are submerged below the brine. Then cap the jar loosely.
- Let your container stand at room temperature for 3-7 days. When the daikon is sour enough to suit your tastes, transfer it to a capped glass jar and transfer it to the refrigerator.
- Most recipes note that refrigerated, kkakdugi will keep for several weeks. On the rare occasions that my family has not finished a batch in that time frame, we've had perfectly delicious, albeit much more sour, kkakdugi for up to two and a half months.
Notes