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Vegetables from Korea

Putmaneul geotjeori (green-garlic fresh kimchi)풋마늘겉절이

Geotjeori is a fresh kimchi; young green garlic or other greens are lightly salted, or just seasoned with soy sauce, tossed with chilli and fish sauce, and eaten at once. This is a boundary entry in the atlas, because geotjeori is eaten before it ferments.

Fully documentedVegetables

Recipe

Putmaneul geotjeori (green-garlic fresh kimchi), a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Mar del Este, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
No fixed amounts recordedHousehold practice with no fixed amounts in the sources read.
Young green garlic stalksOne of many seasonal greens used for geotjeori[nfm-geotjeori]
Salt for a light surface salting, or soy sauce instead[nfm-geotjeori]
Chilli powder, spring onion, garlic, ginger and fish sauce[nfm-geotjeori]
Starternone (eaten fresh, before fermentation)
Start
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Close-up: salt moving into a bean

What changes: Green garlic is salted only on the surface, just enough to soften it

Step 1 of 4
Lightly salt the green garlic
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Geotjeori is a fresh kimchi; young green garlic or other greens are lightly salted, or just seasoned with soy sauce, tossed with chilli and fish sauce, and eaten at once. This is a boundary entry in the atlas, because geotjeori is eaten before it ferments.

What makes this one different

Geotjeori is not left to ferment. Only the surface is salted, or soy sauce is used, and it is eaten at once or within a short time; commercial geotjeori kimchi measured pH 5.46–5.89.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Baechu geotjeoriThe most common geotjeori, from tender cabbage leaves in spring or before kimjang.
  • Bomdong geotjeoriFrom spring bomdong cabbage.

Safety

Geotjeori is not stored to ripen. One study of commercial geotjeori kimchi found coliforms at 1.8 × 10^4 to 7.1 × 10^5 CFU/ml, an acidity of 0.09–0.18 % and a pH of 5.46–5.89. In the same study, coliforms disappeared from kimchi sauce once its acidity passed 0.80 %.

Hazards the sources name: Coliforms at 1.8 × 10^4 to 7.1 × 10^5 CFU/ml in commercial geotjeori kimchi.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

The folk encyclopedia notes that a Korea–China–Japan food comparison group once decided to leave geotjeori out of kimchi because it is not fermented, while Korean food culture counts it as kimchi. Korean Wikipedia says the same, and adds that government food classifications list geotjeori as kimchi.

Process times
The sources we found give no figure for how long any of its steps take.
Temperature, salt and pH
The sources we found give no temperature, salt or pH figure for any of its steps.
  1. [nfm-geotjeori] National Folk Museum of Korea, Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture, Korean Food, Clothing and Housing (한국의식주생활사전), 겉절이; KOGL type 2, facts only; read 2026-10book
  2. [choi2003] Choi T.-K., Park S.-H., Yoo J.-H., Lim H.-S., Hwang S.-Y., Jo J.-S. 2003, Effect of starter and salt-fermented anchovy extracts on the quality of kimchi sauce and geotjeori kimchi, Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture 18(2):96–104 (abstract)paper
  3. [kowiki-geotjeori] Korean Wikipedia, 겉절이 (outline; only the surface is salted, so it is eaten soon, and many seasonal vegetables are used; cites the Kimchi Encyclopedia), read 2026-11-01wiki