Pumpkin Kimchi for Stew

Hobak-kimchi is unusual among kimchi in that it is made mainly to be cooked. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture describes it as a regional dish of Hwanghae Province, now in North Korea, where it was rarely eaten as it was: instead, the ripened kimchi was rinsed, squeezed and simmered with a little doenjang and gochujang into a stew, ideally with some meat. The encyclopedia's survey of regional foods lists both pumpkin kimchi and hobakji-jjigae (pumpkin-kimchi stew) among Hwanghae's characteristic dishes, and hobakji-jjigae among Chungcheong's as well.

There are two seasonal forms. The summer kimchi of Hwanghae uses a pumpkin that is neither young nor fully ripe, cut into thick half-moons and salted in layers with young radish greens (yeolmu); the leftover brine is thickened with a little cooked wheat flour and poured back, and the crock is left five or six days until the kimchi turns yellow and tangy. The winter form, hobakji (“old-pumpkin kimchi”), is put down at kimjang with fully ripe, hard-skinned cheongdung pumpkin, using up whatever radish, cabbage and jeotgal are left from the main kimchi-making. The encyclopedia is clear that hobakji is not eaten raw: it is simmered in rice-rinsing water in an earthenware pot over gentle heat, a nutty, warming winter dish.

The habit survives in Gyeonggi as well. The Digital Hwaseong Culture Encyclopedia records how cooks in Baengmi-ri, on the west coast, make pumpkin kimchi at kimjang time from unsalted slices of aged pumpkin and the small or broken leaves left over from salting cabbage, tossed in the same seasoning as the main kimchi. Once fully fermented it is stewed in rice water with nothing else added until the pumpkin softens; older cooks once ground freshwater shrimp into it.

• Beta-carotene from pumpkin: ripe pumpkin is a source of vitamin A; an estimated 80 g serving of the kimchi provides around 40 µg RAE.
• A vegetable-based winter dish: pumpkin and cabbage give fiber and potassium in a stew that needs no added fat.
• Fermented, then cooked: stewing ends the fermentation, so it should not be thought of as a source of live lactic acid bacteria.

• Hwanghae (summer): half-ripe pumpkin and yeolmu fermented in brine thickened with wheat flour, then stewed with doenjang and a little gochujang, sometimes with meat or clams.
• Hwanghae and Chungcheong (hobakji): fully ripe pumpkin with radish or cabbage, made at kimjang and simmered in rice-rinsing water in winter.
• Hwaseong, Gyeonggi: aged pumpkin left unsalted and mixed with trimmings of salted cabbage in a seasoning of salted shrimp, ground fresh shrimp and sand-lance fish sauce.