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Vegetables from Korea

Oi-sobagi (stuffed cucumber kimchi)오이소박이

Oi-sobagi is cucumber cut into short pieces, slit into four, salted and stuffed with chopped chives or green onion, garlic, ginger and chilli. It sours fast and is eaten within days, crisp and fresh, in spring and summer.

Fully documentedVegetables24 h – 8 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedHousehold recipe with no fixed amounts.
CucumbersCut into 4 cm pieces, or 7 cm pieces with the ends kept whole and the middle slit four ways[nfm-sobagi]
SaltRubbed into the cut cucumbers[nfm-sobagi]
Garlic chives, choppedThe main filling since the 1980s; the court used minced salted cucumber offcuts[nfm-sobagi]
Green onion whites, garlic and ginger, minced, with chilli powderThe older filling, seasoned with a little salt[nfm-sobagi]
Young radish (yeolmu), optionalLayered in for a cool, fuller kimchi; jeotgal is best left out[nfm-sobagi]
Starterspontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 24 h – 8 days

Start
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What changes: Cucumbers are cut into short pieces and slit into four from the middle

Step 1 of 5
Cut the cucumbers and slit them
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactobacillus plantarum
Lactobacillus sakei
L. mesenteroides
Lactic acid bacteria

Pieces are 4 cm long, or 7 cm with the ends left joined and the middle split four ways. Output: cucumber pieces slit in a cross.

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

Oi-sobagi is cucumber cut into short pieces, slit into four, salted and stuffed with chopped chives or green onion, garlic, ginger and chilli. It sours fast and is eaten within days, crisp and fresh, in spring and summer. Made in 5 steps over 24 h – 8 days. The longest step, ripen briefly and eat, takes 24 h – 8 days (National Folk Museum of Korea 1948) and runs at 10 °C (Paik J.-E 2006). Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus sakei and Leuconostoc mesenteroides, detected by PCR in oi-sobagi does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step24 h – 8 daysReported[nfm-sobagi][park2004]Ripen briefly and eat
Temperature10 °CReported[paik2006]Ripen briefly and eat

What makes this one different

Unlike oiji, the cucumbers are slit and stuffed, not soured whole in brine. It sours faster than other kimchi and does not suit stew.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Water oi-sobagiThe older form, with brine poured over the stuffed cucumbers.
  • Gaji-sobagi (eggplant)Eggplant slit and stuffed like oi-sobagi, but blanched first (see gaji kimchi).

Safety

Kimchi is not a common vehicle of foodborne pathogens, because lactic bacteria work against them, but a review of Korean fermented foods warns that this cannot be taken for granted. In one study of kimchi stored at 10 °C for 7 days, E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella Enteritidis, S. aureus and L. monocytogenes all survived, and E. coli O157:H7 stayed high through 24 days (Inatsu et al. 2004, as reviewed).

History and sources

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

The farm manual Jeungbo sallim gyeongje, whose manuscript was completed in 1766, records hwanggwa damjeo beop, cucumber stuffed with chilli and garlic, the first written oi-sobagi. Imwon gyeongje ji and Siui jeonseo give the green-onion, garlic and chilli filling used today. Chives became the main filling after the 1980s.

  1. [nfm-sobagi] National Folk Museum of Korea, Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture, Korean Food, Clothing and Housing (한국의식주생활사전), 소박이; cites Son Jeong-gyu, Uri eumsik (1948) and later cookbooks; KOGL type 2, facts only; read 2026-10book
  2. [shim2008] Shim S.-M. and Lee J.-H. 2008, PCR-based detection of lactic acid bacteria in Korean fermented vegetables with recA gene targeted species-specific primers, Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters 36(2), 96–100 (abstract)paper
  3. [park2004] Park M.-L., Lee Y.-J., Kozukue N., Han J.-S., Choi S.-H., Huh S.-M., Han G.-P. and Choi S.-K. 2004, Changes of vitamin C and chlorophyll contents in oi-kimchi with storage time, Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture 19(5), 566–572 (abstract)paper
  4. [paik2006] Paik J.-E., Jung H.-A. and Bae H.-J. 2006, Quality changes of cucumber kimchi prepared with different minor ingredients during fermentation, The Korean Journal of Food and Nutrition 19(4), 473–481 (abstract)paper
  5. [patra2016] Patra J.K., Das G., Paramithiotis S. and Shin H.-S. 2016, Kimchi and Other Widely Consumed Traditional Fermented Foods of Korea, A Review, Frontiers in Microbiology 7:1493, doi 10.3389/fmicb.2016.01493paper
  6. [enwiki-jeungbo] English Wikipedia, Jeungbo sallim gyeongje (date of the manuscript, 1766), read 2026-10wiki