Pa Kimchi — Green Onion Kimchi (파김치)

Nationwide but strongly associated with Pyongannam-do cuisine (North Korea) and brought south by displaced families after 1950

Pa kimchi celebrates the whole green onion — roots, white bulb, and green stalk — fermented in a direct paste without prior salting, relying on the natural water content of the onion and the salt in the yangnyeom to cure as it ferments. The result is intensely savoury, pungent, and deeply umami. Unlike most kimchi, pa kimchi is often eaten very young (same day to three days) when the onion retains some raw bite, or very old (months) when it softens completely and the flavour concentrates dramatically. It is the essential side for naengmyeon in the Pyongan tradition.

• Shares lineage with Japanese negi-zuke (pickled spring onion) and Chinese paocai onion preparations, but the saeujeot + gochugaru base is distinctly Korean

The concentrated savouriness of aged pa kimchi makes it a natural accompaniment to plain steamed rice (흰 쌀밥) and works powerfully as a flavour agent chopped into pa kimchi jjeon (pancake). Fresh pa kimchi alongside fatty samgyeopsal cleanses the palate with every bite.