This is Word of Mouth, where we find passionate people cooking what they love and show you how to get hold of it. This one is called Seoulmade.
Seoulmade is Johanne, Korean name Moon Sun Ok. She was born in Korea and grew up in Denmark, and for a long stretch of her life Korea was a part of her she did not quite know how to reach. A trip to Seoul in 2013 changed that. After more than a decade working in restaurants she went full time on Seoulmade in 2021, and the whole thing is built around one idea: get properly alive Korean flavour into as many kitchens as possible.
Everything is unpasteurised. That is the part that matters. Pasteurising kimchi stops the fermentation and flattens it out, which is exactly why the bagged stuff tastes like a pickle instead of a living thing. Seoulmade leaves it going, so what you get is still working when it reaches you.
Two kimchis, an oil and a paste, and every one of them earns its place in the fridge.
Baechu kimchi is the classic, whole napa cabbage, and it is nothing like the kimchi in bags and jars. The fermentation is still running, so you feel it fizzing on the tongue before the flavour even lands. Fresh zing, real crunch, deep with chilli. This is the real deal.
Kkakdugi kimchi is the crisp square cousin, daikon radish cut into cubes. Same fresh zing, but the radish gives it a snap the cabbage cannot. If you have only ever eaten cabbage kimchi, start here and see what you have been missing.
Chili oil is loaded with peanuts, cashews and sesame, and the heat sits low and builds slowly. Nutty, deep, and it goes on anything you want to wake up. Their own label calls it nutty by nature, mild by choice, which is exactly right. Pour it over rice, over scrambled eggs, over pasta.
Ssamjang is the umami bomb, doenjang and gochujang together, Korean miso and chilli paste doing the heavy lifting. Traditionally it is a Korean barbecue thing, wrapped up in lettuce with grilled meat. Try it with fresh melon instead. Think parma ham and melon, but on steroids. Trust us on this one.
Because it is unpasteurised, Seoulmade kimchi keeps changing in your fridge, and Johanne is straight about the timeline. The first three to seven days it is fresh, crisp, slightly sour and bubbly. From seven to fourteen days the acidity steps forward and the bite gets serious. After that it softens and sours further, and that is when it stops being a side dish and becomes an ingredient: kimchi pancakes, kimchi stew, anything where you can balance the acidity with fat and heat.
Best before is three months in the fridge, and it is usually good past that. If you see harmless white spots, that is natural yeast doing its job on something untamed, not a fault.
The kimchi is gluten free and contains fish sauce. The ssamjang and the chili oil are both vegan, and the oil carries sesame, cashews and peanuts.
This is the part that catches people out, so read it properly. There is no shop and there is no delivery. The webshop at seoulmade.dk opens for a couple of weeks each month, then closes again until the next batch is made, and pickup happens on set dates a week or two later in Vesterbro. A handful of shops around town carry it too.
So the move is simple: follow Seoulmade on Instagram, watch for the batch to open, order, and put the pickup date in your calendar. If the dates do not suit you, they will take a preferred date in the order comments.
You can also just catch her out in the wild. Seoulmade turns up at Værnedamsvej and Villette markets, has done pop ups at Enghave Kaffe and the Korea Festival, and runs kimchi workshops that sell out.
This visit was sponsored.
If you think you do not like kimchi, you have probably only had the pasteurised version, and this will change your mind in one bite. If you already love it, this is the good stuff, made by someone who is doing it to stay close to where she comes from. Get the baechu and the ssamjang, and buy the chili oil while you are at it.
But now… the real question is… where do we go next?
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