Hwanggwa damjeo (1766 cucumber kimchi with chilli)

What is hwanggwa damjeo?

Hwanggwa damjeo is a cucumber kimchi recorded in Jeungbo sallim gyeongje, a household manual expanded by Yu Jung-rim in 1766. Hwanggwa is the cucumber, and damjeo means a lightly salted pickle.

Small cucumbers are cut three times along their length, filled with a little chilli powder and sliced garlic, and covered with boiling salted water. The jar is tied shut, and the text says the cucumbers are ready the next day.

The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture names it as the first recorded kimchi made with chilli powder. The same book also gives a radish kimchi with chilli, Sichuan pepper and mustard.

What does the 1766 text say?

In the Korean translation, the cook takes young cucumbers, removes the stems and washes them. Each cucumber gets three slits, and a little chilli powder and four or five pieces of garlic go into them.

Salt goes into water that has boiled for a long time. The cook pours this water, very hot, over the cucumbers already packed in the jar, then ties the mouth of the jar tightly. The cucumbers can be eaten the following day.

The text gives no weights for the salt, the chilli or the water. The term it uses for the chilli powder is 蠻椒末, the southern barbarian pepper, a name that marks chilli as a foreign plant.

Read closely, the 1766 recipe puts chilli in a cucumber pickle. It does not describe red cabbage kimchi of the modern kind.

Is this the first chilli kimchi?

Standard Korean reference works say yes. Encykorea finds no chilli in Sallim gyeongje of about 1715, in Eumsik dimibang of about 1670 or in the late seventeenth-century Yorok. Earlier kimchi spices were Sichuan pepper and fennel.

The National Institute of Korean History says chilli reached Korea from Japan around the Imjin War of 1592 to 1598. Yi Su-gwang's Jibong yuseol of 1614 warned that the plant was poisonous.

Some researchers dispute this account. A 2015 paper in the Journal of Ethnic Foods by Kwon and colleagues argues that gochu grew in Korea before 1592. That remains a minority position, and the 1766 date in this recipe refers only to the first written chilli kimchi.

What else is in the 1766 book?

Hwanggwa damjeo is one of several kimchi in Jeungbo sallim gyeongje. The book also has dongchimi, a clear radish water kimchi, and a cabbage kimchi, songchimjeo. It gives Yongin oiji, a cucumber pickle named after Yongin, a winter aubergine kimchi and kimchi made with abalone and with oysters.

Its second chilli recipe, chim nabok hamjeo, is a salted radish kimchi. Radish goes in with its leaves and stems, along with the green seaweed cheonggak, pumpkin and aubergine. The seasoning is chilli, Sichuan pepper and mustard with plenty of garlic juice. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture compares it with modern chonggak kimchi.

Together the two recipes show chilli joining the older spices rather than pushing them out. The cucumber kimchi uses chilli alone, and the radish kimchi keeps Sichuan pepper beside it.

How does it relate to winter kimchi?

Hwanggwa damjeo is a quick summer pickle, ready the day after it is made. Winter kimchi was a different job. Joseon households made it in bulk in late autumn, a custom later called kimjang, and kept it in onggi jars through the cold months.

UNESCO inscribed kimjang on its intangible heritage list in 2013 and describes a year-long cycle behind it. Salted seafood is prepared in spring, salt is bought in summer and red chillies are dried and ground in late summer, before the cabbage and radish arrive in late autumn. The chilli powder in that cycle descends from the small pinch this cucumber recipe asks for.

Fermentea's oi-sobagi, the modern stuffed cucumber kimchi, follows the same idea of slitting and filling a cucumber, with a much fuller seasoning paste.

Ingredients

Small cucumbers, 6, about 100 g each, young and firm

Korean chilli powder, 1 tsp in total

Garlic, 6 cloves, thinly sliced

Non-iodised salt, 40 g

Water, 1 l

The 1766 text gives no amounts. These quantities are an editorial modern version. The 40 g of salt in 1 l of water makes a brine of about 4%, inside the 2–5% final salt range given by Colorado State University Extension for kimchi.

Method

Wash the cucumbers and cut off the stem ends. Make three lengthwise slits in each, leaving both ends whole so the cucumber holds together.

Push a pinch of chilli powder and four or five slices of garlic into the slits of each cucumber. Stand them upright in a clean jar of about 1.5 l.

Dissolve the salt in the water, bring it to the boil and let it boil for several minutes. Pour it over the cucumbers at 100 °C until they are covered.

Close the jar tightly and leave it at room temperature overnight. Taste a cucumber the next day, then move the jar to the refrigerator.

How the hot brine works

Boiling brine softens the cucumber skin and lets the salt and garlic into the flesh within hours. That is why the 1766 text can promise a cucumber ready by the next morning.

Cheigh and Park's 1994 review describes kimchi fermentation as starting from the microbes on the raw materials, with lactic acid bacteria gradually taking over. Organic acids accumulate and the texture softens over time.

A scalded cucumber eaten the next day is barely fermented. Left longer, it sours and loses crispness.

Food safety and storage

Colorado State University Extension advises clean hands, equipment and surfaces throughout. Store finished kimchi tightly covered in the refrigerator, keep it pressed down under its liquid and discard it if surface mould appears.

University of Minnesota Extension advises food-grade containers and keeping produce under the brine.

The next-day timing in the 1766 text is a quality statement. It is not a safety limit, and this recipe has not had professional process validation.