Sobagi usually means cucumber kimchi — cucumbers cut open and packed with a seasoned chive filling. This version swaps the cucumber for cherry tomatoes, which burst with sweet juice the moment you bite through the skin and hit the salty, garlicky stuffing inside.
It’s a fresh kimchi, meaning you eat it right away rather than fermenting it for weeks. Koreans make small batches like this in summer when tomatoes are cheap and sweet, and serve them as a cold banchan next to grilled meat, rice, or noodles.
The whole thing takes about fifteen minutes and needs no cooking at all. If you have never made kimchi before, this is a very forgiving place to start.
Ingredients
- 150g cherry tomatoes (about 1 cup, 5 tomatoes)
- 10g onion (a 3×1cm piece, about 1 tablespoon chopped)
- 10g Korean chives (5 stems, about 1/4 cup chopped)
- 4g gochugaru, Korean red pepper flakes (1 teaspoon)
- 3g anchovy fish sauce (2/3 teaspoon)
- 2.5g minced garlic (1/2 clove)
- 2g plum extract syrup, maesil-aek (1/3 teaspoon)
- 2g sugar (1/3 teaspoon)
- 2ml water (1/3 teaspoon)
- A pinch of toasted sesame seeds
Instructions
- Drain the Korean chives well and cut them, along with the onion, into pieces about 2cm (3/4 inch) long, then mix them into the seasoning sauce to make the stuffing.
- Wash the cherry tomatoes thoroughly, pull off the stems, and use a knife to cut a cross-shaped slit into the top of each one.
- Tuck the stuffing down into the slits of each scored cherry tomato and toss gently to coat.
Tips & Variations
Finding the ingredients: Gochugaru, anchovy fish sauce (myeolchi-aekjeot), and maesil-aek all live in the same aisle at any Korean grocery, and all three keep for months. Online Korean grocers ship them nationwide.
- Korean chives (buchu) are flat and grassy, not hollow like Western chives. If you can’t find them, use garlic chives from a Chinese market, or thin scallion greens sliced lengthwise.
- Plum extract (maesil-aek) adds sweetness plus a light fruity tang. Substitute 1/3 teaspoon honey with a few drops of rice vinegar, or just a bit more sugar.
- Fish sauce: Thai or Vietnamese fish sauce works, though it’s saltier and sharper — start with a little less. For a vegetarian version, use soy sauce.
- Don’t cut too deep. Slice the cross about two-thirds of the way down so the tomato opens like a flower but stays in one piece. Cutting all the way through means the filling falls out.
- Firm tomatoes only. Overripe tomatoes collapse when scored. Choose ones that feel taut.
Eat within a day or two, chilled. The tomatoes release juice as they sit, which turns into a light dressing — spoon it over rice.
Nutrition
- Calories: 45 kcal
- Carbohydrates: 9 g
- Protein: 2 g
- Fat: 1 g
- Sodium: 277 mg