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Vegetables from Korea

Buchu kimchi (garlic-chive kimchi)부추김치

Buchu kimchi is garlic chives tossed with anchovy sauce, chilli powder, garlic and ginger, eaten fresh or after it sours. It ferments much more slowly than cabbage kimchi, because the chives hold back the lactic bacteria.

Fully documentedVegetables8 days – 10 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceHousehold recipe with no fixed amounts. Only the perilla seed trial gives an amount, as a share of chive weight.
Garlic chivesTrimmed, washed and cut in half; lightly salted in the Gyeongsang method, or used raw[nfm-buchu]
Anchovy jeotBoiled with extra water and strained through a sieve[nfm-buchu]
Chilli powderPlenty of it in the Gyeongsang style[nfm-buchu]
Ginger, minced garlic and sugar[nfm-buchu]
Perilla seed powder (optional)2 % of the chive weightBest level in a trial of 0–5 %[jang1998]
StarterKimchi is fermented without added starter cultures (Jung et al. 2011, on kimchi in general).

Total time across the recorded steps: 8 days – 10 days

Start
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Close-up: salt moving into a piece

What changes: Washed garlic chives are cut in half and lightly salted

Step 1 of 4
Trim, wash and lightly salt the chives
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria

Old texts dry the chives briefly and salt them in layers. Today they are often only washed. Output: wilted chives.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Buchu kimchi is garlic chives tossed with anchovy sauce, chilli powder, garlic and ginger, eaten fresh or after it sours. It ferments much more slowly than cabbage kimchi, because the chives hold back the lactic bacteria. Made in 4 steps over 8 days – 10 days. The longest step, ripen slowly, takes 8–10 days (박문옥 and 장명숙 (Park and Jang) 2000) and runs at 10–20 °C (안순철 2001). Leuconostoc and Lactobacillus; Lactobacillus stayed at its peak for over 15 days at 20 °C and Pediococcus, Streptococcus, Leuconostoc and Lactobacillus isolated; Streptococcus peaked at day 8 do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step8–10 daysMeasured[park2000a][ahn2001]Ripen slowly
Temperature10–20 °CReported[ahn2001][park2000a]Ripen slowly
AciditypH 4.2–4.3Measured[ahn2001]Ripen slowly

What makes this one different

Buchu kimchi ferments far more slowly than cabbage kimchi. In one trial it took 10 days at 20 °C to reach the pH cabbage kimchi reached in 3. It often needs no green onion or garlic, because the chives carry their own sharpness.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Gyeongsang jeonggu-ji kimchiChives wilted in anchovy jeot and coated with plenty of chilli, eaten soon after making.
  • Soy-sauce buchu kimchiMade with soy sauce instead of salt or anchovy sauce; it ripened fastest and scored best in a 2000 trial.

Safety

Kimchi can pick up pathogenic or spoilage bacteria if it is contaminated during preparation. South Korea's food-safety ministry sets limits for kimchi. Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes and Vibrio parahaemolyticus must be absent from 25 g samples, and Bacillus cereus is capped at 10,000 CFU/g in fermented foods such as kimchi. This is general kimchi guidance; the sources for this page give no safety figures for it.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Sejong sillok names gujeo (韭菹), and Jeungbo sallim gyeongje gives eomguchaebeop (淹韭菜法). Old texts dry the chives and salt them in layers; the regional names follow local words for chives.

  1. [ahn2001] 안순철, 김태강, 이헌주, 오윤정 and 이정숙 (Ahn et al.) 2001, Fermentation patterns of leek kimchi and Chinese cabbage kimchi, Korean Journal of Microbiology 37(3), 234–238 (abstract)paper
  2. [park2000a] 박문옥 and 장명숙 (Park and Jang) 2000, Sensory and microbiological properties of puchukimchi prepared with different methods, Korean Journal of Food and Cookery Science 16(1), 65–74 (abstract)paper
  3. [park2000b] 박문옥, 김나영 and 장명숙 (Park, Kim and Jang) 2000, Color and texture properties of puchukimchi prepared with different methods, Korean Journal of Food and Cookery Science 16(4), 321–327 (abstract)paper
  4. [jang1998] 장명숙 and 박문옥 (Jang and Park) 1998, Effect of various levels of perilla seed powder on the fermentation of puchukimchi, Korean Journal of Food and Cookery Science 14(3), 232–240 (abstract)paper
  5. [nfm-buchu] National Folk Museum of Korea, Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture, Korean Food, Clothing and Housing (한국의식주생활사전), 부추김치; KOGL type 2, facts only; read 2026-10book
  6. [shim2024] Shim Y., Lee J.Y., Jung J. 2024, Effects of kimchi-derived lactic acid bacteria on reducing biological hazards in kimchi, Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology 34(12):2586-2595 (introduction cites the Korean ministry's microbial limits for kimchi)paper
  7. [jung2011] Jung J.Y., Lee S.H., Kim J.M., Park M.S., Bae J.-W., Hahn Y., Madsen E.L., Jeon C.O. 2011, Metagenomic analysis of kimchi, a traditional Korean fermented food, Applied and Environmental Microbiology 77(7):2264-2274 (industrial napa-cabbage kimchi, 29 days at 4 degrees C)paper