Kimchi yangnyeom
Also known as kimchi paste, kimchi seasoning paste, kimchi seasoning
PasteFermented
Quick answer
The seasoning paste that turns salted cabbage into kimchi: Korean red pepper powder with garlic, ginger, spring onion, salted fermented seafood and a little rice paste. It is mixed into the vegetable before fermentation, and studies show that the red pepper and the garlic in it change which bacteria do the fermenting.
In essentially every version: Red pepper powder (gochugaru), Ground garlic, Ground ginger, Green onion, Glutinous rice paste, Salted fermented seafood (jeotgal).
What goes into it
What essentially every version is made from, with what each ingredient is there to do.
| Ingredient | Role | How essential |
|---|---|---|
| Gochugaru (ground)What makes the paste and the kimchi red. In one commercial paste it was 15.8 per cent by weight, the largest component after radish. White kimchi is made without it, and studies comparing the two found that the powder changes which bacteria grow. | heat | defining |
| Garlic (fresh)Named in every description read. In kimchi made with 0 to 4 per cent garlic, more garlic meant more lactic acid bacteria in the first week. | savoury depth | usual |
| Ginger (fresh) | supporting aromatic | usual |
| Spring onion | supporting aromatic | usual |
| RiceA cooked starch paste that holds the powder and the aromatics together. One paper calls it starch paste. | binder | usual |
| Salted fermented seafoodIn all four descriptions read, and a different one in each: anchovy, shrimp and croaker in the commercial paste, salted shrimp in one laboratory kimchi, fish sauce in another. | savoury depth | usual |
| OnionIn the commercial paste analysed and in one laboratory kimchi; not named in the other two descriptions. | savoury depth | optional |
The paste is a set of ingredients more than a formula. Four descriptions were read, and all four have red pepper powder, garlic and ginger. Three add green or spring onion, three a rice or starch paste, and all four a salted fermented seafood, which is anchovy, shrimp and croaker in one, salted shrimp in another and fish sauce in a third. Radish is in all four. One commercial paste also held seaweed stock, pear juice, chives, leaf mustard and sugar. A review notes that kimchi in North Korea tends to be less red and less hot, with less chilli powder, less seafood and less salt. White kimchi leaves the red pepper out altogether.
The versions
Each attributed, with how firm its proportions are stated plainly.
A commercial paste from Gwangju
Typical commercialOne ready-made kimchi paste bought in a market in Gwangju, as its composition is printed in a food-science study · proportions documented · medium confidence
A paste sold for making kimchi at home. By weight it was about a third radish and a sixth red pepper powder, with salt-fermented anchovy, salted shrimp sauce, seaweed stock, garlic, glutinous rice paste, onion, green onion, dried red pepper, pear juice, chives, ginger, sugar, leaf mustard and salt-fermented croaker. The figures below are that study’s percentages for the ingredients this catalogue holds.
| Ingredient | Parts | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Red pepper powder | 15.8 | 30% |
| Salt-fermented anchovy, salted shrimp sauce and salt-fermented croaker | 18 | 35% |
| Ground garlic | 5.4 | 10% |
| Glutinous rice paste | 4.7 | 9% |
| Onion | 3.2 | 6% |
| Green onion | 3.2 | 6% |
| Ground ginger | 1.6 | 3% |
One product. The ingredients listed here make up about half of it; radish at 31.6 per cent, seaweed stock at 7.4 and the rest are not shown because the catalogue has no page for them. It is one maker’s paste and not a standard.
Fermentation
What makes it what it is, as studies have found it. Observations, not a method to follow.
Kimchi
Lactic fermentation · Korea · also Korean fermented vegetables
Vegetables such as Chinese cabbage and radish, salted, mixed with a seasoning paste and fermented by their own lactic acid bacteria. The paste is red pepper powder with garlic, ginger, spring onion, salted fermented seafood and a starch paste. In one laboratory kimchi the cabbage was 84 per cent of the weight and the red pepper powder 3 per cent.
The spices in kimchi shape which bacteria grow. One group bought red kimchi and white kimchi, made without red pepper powder, from the same company and followed one bacterium in each with a species-specific assay. Weissella koreensis gave the stronger signal in the red kimchi, between the first and third weeks at 4 °C and within two days at 15 or 25 °C. The same group cites earlier work in which kimchi with the powder held a larger share of Weissella and less Leuconostoc and Lactobacillus. Garlic acts too: in kimchi made with 0, 1, 2 and 4 per cent garlic, lactic acid bacteria after one week stood at 6.35, 5.67, 6.99 and 7.47 log CFU/mL, and kimchi with 2 per cent or more held more Lactobacillus and Leuconostoc.
The studies read kept their kimchi cold: one at 4 °C, sampled weekly, and another at 4, 15 and 25 °C, where the same change took weeks in the cold and a day or two in the warm. The seasoning paste ferments on its own as well. A commercial paste held at 10 °C for 20 days lost pH and gained acidity as its lactic acid bacteria grew.
Garlic changed the chemistry as well as the bacteria. Kimchi with 4 per cent garlic was significantly more acid after one week than kimchi with none, and the authors conclude that garlic altered the use of sugars and the making of organic acids. They suggest this bears on flavour and did not test it by tasting.
What goes into it
- Fermented: Chinese cabbage, salted (Eighty-four per cent of one laboratory kimchi by weight. The cabbage in this catalogue is the European one, so this is named and not linked.)
- Seasoning added: Seasoning paste (The parts below are what one laboratory kimchi put into it.); Red pepper powder (Three per cent of one laboratory kimchi.); Garlic (None, 1, 2 or 4 per cent in the four kimchi compared.); Ginger (0.8 per cent of one laboratory kimchi.); Onion (2.5 per cent of one laboratory kimchi.); Salted shrimp (1.5 per cent of one laboratory kimchi. Itself a ferment, it brings salt and savouriness.)
- Carrier or binder: Glutinous rice paste (0.8 per cent of one laboratory kimchi.)
Organisms studies found, and how
- Lactic acid bacteria: Weissella koreensis — detected, found by another molecular method. Red and white kimchi bought from one company; a species-specific assay gave the stronger signal in the red. Sources: The influence of red pepper powder on the d… (Results, variation in the density of Weissella koreensis) Leuconostoc — detected, found by sequencing. Laboratory kimchi with 2 per cent garlic or more, which held more of it and of Lactobacillus than kimchi with less. Sources: Exploring the influence of garlic on microb… (Abstract; section 3.1)
What was measured to change
Each of these was measured before and after, or at several points on the way, in the study named. It is a finding about that study’s material.
Measured to appear during the process
- Mannitol. Not detected at the start; 42.49 to 52.42 mM at four weeks. It appeared a week earlier, at 12.50 mM, in the kimchi with 4 per cent garlic. Compared: The day it was made against one, two, three and four weeks at 4 °C. A laboratory batch: Four laboratory kimchi made with 0, 1, 2 and 4 per cent garlic. Sources: Exploring the influence of garlic on microb… (Table 2; section 3.3)
Measured to rise during the process
- Lactic acid. 0.82 to 1.31 mM at the start and 59.79 to 82.46 mM at four weeks. After one week: 6.37, 2.60, 17.94 and 29.85 mM with 0, 1, 2 and 4 per cent garlic. Compared: The day it was made against one, two, three and four weeks at 4 °C. A laboratory batch: Four laboratory kimchi made with 0, 1, 2 and 4 per cent garlic. The authors’ own explanation: The authors conclude that garlic altered the use of sugars and the making of organic acids. Sources: Exploring the influence of garlic on microb… (Table 2; section 3.3)
Measured to fall during the process
- Citric acid. 2.75 to 4.25 mM at the start; at four weeks 1.23, 0.36 and 0.34 mM with 0, 1 and 2 per cent garlic and not detected with 4 per cent. Compared: The day it was made against one, two, three and four weeks at 4 °C. A laboratory batch: Four laboratory kimchi made with 0, 1, 2 and 4 per cent garlic. The authors’ own explanation: The authors take the higher starting level with more garlic to mean that garlic is itself a source of citric acid. Sources: Exploring the influence of garlic on microb… (Table 2; section 3.3; Discussion)
- Sucrose. 0.80 to 1.12 mM at the start and 0.02 to 0.05 mM at four weeks. Compared: The day it was made against one, two, three and four weeks at 4 °C. A laboratory batch: Four laboratory kimchi made with 0, 1, 2 and 4 per cent garlic. Sources: Exploring the influence of garlic on microb… (Table 2)
Measured to disappear during the process
- Malic acid. 7.13 to 10.09 mM at the start. Not detected from the first week with 2 or 4 per cent garlic, nor from the second with none or 1 per cent. Compared: The day it was made against one, two, three and four weeks at 4 °C. A laboratory batch: Four laboratory kimchi made with 0, 1, 2 and 4 per cent garlic. Sources: Exploring the influence of garlic on microb… (Table 2; section 3.3)
What is not established: Kimchi is recorded here for what its spices do to its fermentation and for its seasoning paste; its safety was not researched. The red pepper study compares two commercial products that may differ in more than the powder, and reports assay signals, not counts. In the garlic study the abstract calls the rise in lactic acid bacteria with garlic linear, while its figures put kimchi with 1 per cent garlic below kimchi with none at one week; the figures are given here.
Using it
Mixed with salted vegetables, which then ferment by their own lactic acid bacteria. The commonest kimchi, whole cabbage kimchi, is made by mixing salted cabbage with the paste. The paste is not cooked, and that is why ready-made paste keeps badly: the bacteria already in it go on working, and the acid and gas they make spoil the paste and its packaging. In one study a paste stored at 10 °C was followed for 20 days for exactly that reason.
Food scientists describe kimchi pastes as pungent, sweet, sour and spicy by turns, and put those tastes down to the red pepper powder, salt, sugar, fermented and salted seafood and starch paste.
Moderate. It depends on the share of red pepper powder, which differs between makers.
- Salted Chinese cabbage, for whole cabbage kimchi (baechu-kimchi)
- Radish, cucumber, green onion, mustard leaf, garlic chive and perilla leaf, also made into kimchi
What to use it on
Cabbage
ClassicWhole cabbage kimchi, the commonest kind, is made by mixing salted Chinese cabbage with the paste and leaving it to ferment. The cabbage is bland and watery after salting, and everything that makes the kimchi hot, red and savoury comes from the paste.
How: Baechu-kimchi
Allergens and safety
- Fish — a declarable allergen in the US
- Crustaceans (crustacean shellfish) — a declarable allergen in the EU and US
Fish must be declared in the United States and is not listed in EU Annex II; Crustaceans (crustacean shellfish) must be declared in both the EU and the United States. This is a statement about labelling law rather than about whether allergy occurs — allergic reactions to spices are documented and are not a labelling category — and it is the part of the answer that differs by where the food is sold.
Culture and origin
Korea. A review of the history of kimchi describes yangnyeom, the seasonings, as garlic, red chilli powder, ginger and green onion mixed together before the vegetables go in, and describes the autumn making of kimchi for winter, kimjang, as salting cut cabbages and then coating them with it. None of the papers read dates the paste.
Korea
Korea (South Korea and North Korea).
Kimjang is the making of kimchi in quantity in late autumn, for the winter. A review describes cabbages cut in halves or quarters, salted, and then coated with the seasonings: chilli powder, radish, carrot, green onion, ginger, garlic and fermented seafood. It was entered on the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage in 2013 for South Korea and 2015 for North Korea. Demand for ready-made paste and ready-salted cabbage has grown in Korea, one study says, as people make kimchi at home to their own taste.