When you buy kimchi, the vegetables are soaked in liquid, right? When I was clueless about kimchi, I thought that spices and seasonings are just added to water, and the vegetables are submerged in the mixture. But it’s not that simple.
The soaking liquid is called porridge — glutinous rice flour and sugar cooked in water. It is this mixture that ferments to give kimchi its rich and complex flavor. I’ve seen my daughter (our resident kimchi maker) make it on the stovetop and asked what she was doing. I should have known, right? Water won’t ferment by itself, after all.
When the vegetables are cured, most of the soaking liquid — kimchi juice for brevity — is often left behind. I never really thought about of any use for it until I saw an episode of Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend where challenger Esther Choi used kimchi juice as an ingredient of a cocktail drink that she concocted.
I was wide-eyed with awe. What a genius move! If a good cocktail drink needs something tart, it’s citrus juice that’s usually added. Lemon, lime, orange… Why not kimchi juice, right? Not only is it tart, it also has a lot of umami richness that developed from fermentation.

I looked at our tub of green onion kimchi (pa-kimchi) and saw the pool of liquid that had collected at the bottom. And I thought… if that liquid is good enough to go into a cocktail drink, surely, it’s good enough to go into a dressing.
So, I mixed it with soy sauce, honey and garlic then added scallions, sesame seeds and sesame oil. And that dressing was combined with noodles and meat to make a lovely one bowl meal.

I gave it a simple name. Spicy sesame garlic noodles. This noodle dish is salty, sweet and spicy with the umami richness that only fermented food can impart. See the recipe.
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