Stuffed Cucumber Kimchi Oisobagi! This is my husband’s favorite type of kimchi next to regular cabbage kimchi. We hope you try it!
As a kid, my mother and I would have talks about who I was going to marry. She thought I needed to learn how to cook Korean food so I could meet and marry a nice Korean boy. She and my father never really pressured any of us (my brother, sister and I) to marry Korean. . we never really dated outside of Korean … I did but later. Fast forward some years, our family went through a rough few years (not my story to tell) and I think this made my parents realize that as long as we married for love and to someone good and kind, that race didn’t matter.
With me, however, my mother worried. My younger sister got married before I did, which back in the day, in Korean families, isn’t good. I guess the older daughter should always get married before the younger. And it didn’t help that I wasn’t even dating anyone at the time.
Long story short. We survived. I survived. My mother survived. We survived. Korean women gossip. Korean church going women are the worst. . Why is Grace getting married before Alice? What’s going on? Why isn’t Alice dating anyone?
Stuffed Cucumber Kimchi Oisobagi
Fast forward 4 or 5 years. I was living in Los Angeles and after many failed attempts at dating and trying to meet new people, I went online. Yes, I met my husband on an online dating app. It worked for us. Paul and I matched on eHarmony. I don’t how this site works now but back then, you have to fill out -what I remember to be- a 7 page questionnaire that would ideally match you with your ideal match. After going out on a date with a Chinese guy who was a vegan and did bikram yoga (I think I was bigger than him), I met Paul. We had actually met in person at a Korean leadership conference in Chicago. So, during our first phone conversation, we realized that we had actually met before. And while we were looking for photos for our wedding slideshow, we both found the same identical photo (from that conference where we briefly met for the first time), we both had copies (it was a group photo) but in the photo he was standing behind me. It’s funny how things work out.
Paul was the answer to my parents’ prayers. I’m not even kidding. Before LA, I lived and worked in San Francisco and I liked this Korean guy. . but he was a vegetarian. My mother: “What’s wrong with him? What man doesn’t eat meat? That’s not normal. Stop hanging out with him.” The first time Paul met my parents we went to a Korean restaurant. You could see the huge smile on my mother’s face as Paul was eating and enjoying his food. His galbi and rice and everything else. My mom was so happy. and I was too.
Maangchi’s Stuffed Cucumber Kimchi Oi Sobagi
Maangchi is my go-to after my mother. She is the OG. She was the first content creator (that I know of) who started doing videos making Korean food. She is THE BEST. I would love to meet her in real life. This is Paul’s favorite kimchi next to regular cabbage kimchi. We hope you try it!
Maangchi's Stuffed Cucumber Kimchi Oi Sobagi
Ingredients
- 2 lbs. kirby cucumbers
- 2 tablespoons kosher salt
- 1 cup buchu (Asian chives) chopped into ½ inch pieces
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 1 medium sized carrot cut into thin matchsticks or julienned (about 1 cup)
- 1 small onion sliced thin
- 1/2 cup gochugaru
- 2 to 3 tablespoons fish sauce
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1/4 cup water
- sesame seeds
Instructions
- For the instructions, visit Maangchi's website
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