Kimchi, Hot Sauce, and Krauts: Watch How They're Made!

Our travelling web series ‘To Market We Go’ is brought to you by the expert kitchen-makers at next125. United by our passion for making every cooking experience a unique one, together, we’re visiting Europe’s very best markets to show you how to find, cook—and enjoy—the very best produce back in your home kitchen. Watch episode 2 at London’s Borough Market here!

Cheese, bread, wine, miso, chocolate, coffee, pickles, salami—so many of our favorite foods have fermentation to thank. Right now, the age-old process is more popular than ever, for everything from the “funky” flavour profiles it stokes to the effect of probiotic foods on the digestive system.

And there’s always new takes to try: On our recent trip to London to explore Borough Market, we stopped by the ‘Eaten Alive’ stall to try out kimchi, krauts, and fermented hot sauces made right in London. The independent company was started a few years ago by chefs and fermentation enthusiasts Pat Bingley and Glyn Gordon, who together they take inspiration from traditional fermentation to create their raw, flavor-packed products—like the explosively flavorful golden, turmeric-based kimchi, pink sauerkraut, or smoked sriracha, my personal favourite, which I promptly began slathering on everything.

As well as operating a stall at Borough Market, the award-winning products are sold to select restaurants like London’s Nanban (you might have heard of head chef Tim Anderson’s book Japaneasy), delis, grocers and supermarkets—now I’m just figuring out how to get a regular supply to Berlin.

To get a better glimpse at how they transform raw, market ingredients into complex-tasting, delicious fermented food, we went to visited them at their production site in Battersea, London, not far from the Market itself. Watch the video for your 60 second fermentation primer!

Watch now:

What is fermentation?

In the case of vegetable ferments like kimchi, sauerkraut, and pickles, the process is called lacto-fermentation. This means that healthy yeast and bacteria breaks down the sugar in food, creating lactic acid which then preserves the food. With tThe fermentation that occurs in something like beer, the yeast is converted into alcohol. The fermentation itself can happen with as little as salt (to ward off the wrong kind of bacteria), water—and time—but other ingredients and aromatics can be added to add depth to the final result.

If you’re feeling inspired, try out some of the recipes below:

Stay tuned for even more from Borough Market with next125. Up next, we'll be sharing our favorite finds and share a recipe inspired by the market that you can recreate in your home kitchen!