my golden hour

Total preparation and cooking time: 2 hours

Ingredients

• ~20-25 Kirby cucumbers
• 1 cup coarse sea salt
• 10~13 cups of water
• 2 cups chopped garlic chives
• 1 1/2 cups chopped green onion
• 3 carrots, julienned finely
• 7 tablespoons fish sauce
• 7 tablespoons water
• 1 cup gochugaru (Korean red pepper flakes)
• 10 cloves of garlic, minced finely
• 1 tbsp minced ginger
• 2 tbsp white sugar

Directions

1. Wash and trim your cucumbers. Carefully, use your knife to make two perpendicular slits in each cucumber, creating an “X” shape on top.
2. In a large pot, boil the water with 1 cup of salt. Bring to a boil and then turn off the heat.
3. Carefully, pour the boiling salt water over the trimmed and cut cucumbers. Leave for 1 hour.
4. While the cucumbers are brining, make the sauce.  Chop the chives and green onions, more finely towards the bottom of the stalk and then increasing the size of the pieces up to 1/4 inch towards the top of the stalks. Using a mandolin (BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL OF YOUR FINGERS), julienne the carrots finely. Put green onions, chives, and carrots aside in a big bowl.
5. In another bowl, add minced garlic, ginger, sugar, fish sauce, water, and gochugaru and mix well.
6. Add the gochugaru mixture into the chives, carrots, and green onions and mix until well combined.
7. After the cucumbers have been brining for 1 hour, drain the water and rinse once with cold water.
8. Using gloves, put about 2 tablespoons of sauce into each cucumber. Carefully open the “X” and stuff the cucumber with the sauce, making sure all four fingers of the cucumber are well coated, as well as the outside of the cucumber.
9. Place the stuffed cucumbers into a large, airtight container closely together.
10. Leave overnight at room temperature and then refrigerate.  Depending on how ripened you like your kimchi, you can eat it anywhere from 1 day later and this lasts a few weeks! (If you have enough self-control ;))