How to make the jangajji ramps from Nudibranch

Chef Jeff Kim grew up on Long Island and came to cooking as a second career, lured by the “chaos and madness” of food, from the vantage points of bussing tables at Momofuku Ssam bar in the East Village, line cooking at Midtown East’s Atoboy a few steps uptown, and then running Nudibranch as a pop-up back in the East Village.

Nudibranch is now very much a permanent space, influenced by Kim’s Korean background and time served as a stage at El Celler de Can Roca. Moved by a love of Spain from living there even prior to his stage, Kim saw parallels between the country’s tapas and pintxos and Korea’s banchan and anju. “In Korea, every time there’s a drink, we have to eat something to go with it. And in Spain, there are certain tapas that go with beer, others that go with wine. Both cultures are very rice forward and love pork.” Kim’s cuisine, and thus, the menu at Nudibranch, melds the similarities of Spain and Korea’s drinking and snacking cultures. “We are Korean Spanish and spirit, and New York at heart,” Kim declares.

Enter the jangajji, Korean soy-pickled ramps. “We throw these soy-pickled ramps in everything. We make an aioli with them. A beef tartare with potato crisps, pine nuts and Asian pear, gets these soy-pickled ramps, chopped up first. We use the same method for marinating crabs, and eggs.” The method lends any ingredient a creamy, velvety, truffled allium flavor.

“My mom has been making them since I was a kid and it’s a very nostalgic flavor for me. I didn’t know what ramps were when I was a kid. It wasn’t until I started cooking that I realized this was a seasonal, rare product that chefs lose their minds over.” Kim gets his ramps from a Korean ajumma who forages in a secret spot in upstate New York, and it’s akin to wild garlic found in Korea. “When Korean immigrants came here, I think they realized it was similar to what they had at home.” 

1. Clean your ramps very well. They are wild and there’s always lots of dirt in them. 
2. Submerge them in your liquid completely and while they’ll be pickled and best ready in a week (flavors develop over time and become more complex), you can eat them at the three-day mark. 
3. Serve these at room temperature. 
4. You can also cook with these jangajji. “My mom makes pasta with them which is hilarious and tasty,” says Kim. Spaghetti, pickled ramps, olive oil, black pepper— like a Korean agli e olio, but with pickled ramps. 
5. Pickled ramps over rice are delicious. 
6. A byproduct of this process are the shiitake mushrooms and “they’re incredibly tasty.” 
7. Whatever you put in the pickled mix is also edible. With one process, you’re making pickled onions, daikon, and mushrooms. It is the gift that keeps on giving. 
8. “We have used the pickling liquid to preserve mussels, which we throw on gildas or potato chips. A classic pintxo in Spain involves potato chips, boquerones, pickled peppers—and at Nudibranch, we add pickled mussels, like a Korean conserva.” 
9. Don’t waste any of the liquid! “The liquid is gold. It can be heated up and used again one more time.” 
10. You can use the liquid in place of soy sauce. Throw in some lemon juice and you have a rampy Korean ponzu that you can use on grilled fish, sashimi, savory pancakes, or fried chicken wings.