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Vegetables from Korea

Seokbakji (mixed-chunk kimchi)섞박지

Seokbakji is radish, cabbage and other vegetables cut in large pieces, salted, and mixed with salted fish, seafood and spices, then left to ripen. The 1809 Gyuhap chongseo recipe layers the vegetables and fish in a buried jar and weighs them down with branches.

Fully documentedVegetables24 days – 26 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe Gyuhap chongseo (1809) recipe gives no amounts. The only amount is from a 2013 lab recipe that added seafood at 10 % of the salted radish.
Large, tender, thin-skinned radish, lightly salted[nfm-seokbakji]
Cabbage and leaf mustard, each salted[nfm-seokbakji]
Salted croaker, shad and sardine (jeot), soaked in good water[nfm-seokbakji]
Abalone, conch and octopus, scored and washed[nfm-seokbakji]
Cheonggak seaweed, spring onion, garlic, chilli and ginger[nfm-seokbakji]
Croaker jeot liquid and oyster jeot liquid, to top up[nfm-seokbakji]
Seafood, in a modern trial recipe10 % (w/w) of the salted radishFlatfish, hairtail, small octopus, sandfish, pollack or gizzard shad[jang2013]
Starterspontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 24 days – 26 days

Start
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Close-up: salt moving into a piece

What changes: Radish, cabbage and leaf mustard are salted for a few days

Step 1 of 4
Salt the radish, cabbage and leaf mustard
Time
3–5 days
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactobacillus
Lactic acid bacteria

The radish is salted only lightly, so that it is not too salty.

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

Seokbakji is radish, cabbage and other vegetables cut in large pieces, salted, and mixed with salted fish, seafood and spices, then left to ripen. The 1809 Gyuhap chongseo recipe layers the vegetables and fish in a buried jar and weighs them down with branches. Made in 4 steps over 24 days – 26 days. The longest step, ripen cold, takes 21 days (Park I 2018) and runs at 5 °C (Jang M.-S 2013). Lactic acid bacteria does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step21 daysMeasured[park2018]Ripen cold
Temperature5 °CReported[jang2013]Ripen cold
AciditypH 4.2–4.4Reported[park2018]Ripen cold

What makes this one different

Seokbakji mixes many vegetables and many kinds of salted fish and seafood at once, cut large. It is not salted hard, so unlike jjanji it does not keep for long (Cho 2010).

Related ferments

Variants

  • Donga seokbakji (wax-gourd seokbakji)A hollowed wax gourd is filled with croaker jeot liquid and spices, sealed with paper and opened in winter (Gyuhap chongseo).
  • Jeoneo and galchi seokbakji (Gyeongsangnam-do)Named for the jeot used, gizzard shad or hairtail.

Safety

The 1809 recipe warns that kimchi made in hot weather turns sour and poor. The sources we read do not say whether the abalone, conch and octopus go in raw or cooked. The US CDC says most people get vibriosis from eating raw or undercooked shellfish, particularly oysters, so take care if abalone or conch go in uncooked.

History and sources

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

The name first appears as gyochimchae (交沈菜) in the record of King Jeongjo's 1795 feast for his mother at Hwaseong. The first recipe is in Gyuhap chongseo (1809). Park 2019 traces whole-cabbage kimchi to seokbakji used as a stuffing.

  1. [nfm-seokbakji] National Folk Museum of Korea, Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture, Korean Food, Clothing and Housing (한국의식주생활사전), 섞박지 (quoting Gyuhap chongseo, 1809); KOGL type 2, facts only; read 2026-10book
  2. [park2018] Park I., Song H.S., Cho S.S. 2018, Physicochemical characteristics of radish kimchi supplemented with seafood (gizzard shad) during fermentation, Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology 50(6):601–607 (abstract)paper
  3. [jang2013] Jang M.-S., Park H.-Y., Nam K.-H., Nam H.G. 2013, Nutrient composition and sensory characteristics of seokbakji supplemented with seafood, Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology 45(5):605–612 (abstract)paper
  4. [cho2010] Cho W.-K. 2010, A historical study of Korean traditional radish kimchi, Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture 25(4):428–455 (abstract)paper
  5. [park2019] Park C.-L. 2019, Comprehensive study on the origins and changes in kimchi recipe, Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture 34(2):93–111 (abstract)paper
  6. [cdc-vibrio] CDC, About Vibrio infection (vibriosis)gov