Korean Table

Got an almost-empty kimchi jar with an inch of red liquid pooled in the bottom? Here's what to do with kimchi juice before it goes down the drain: cook with it, pickle with it, drink it, or just hang onto it a while longer. That liquid isn't an afterthought. It's the same salt, garlic, chili flakes, and usually a spoonful of fish sauce or salted shrimp that seasoned the cabbage in the first place, now fully fermented and sitting untouched in your fridge door. Most kimchi sold outside Korea comes two ways: a screw-top jar with plenty of brine pooled around the cabbage, or a vacuum-sealed pouch with barely any liquid at all. Buying the pouch kind on an Asian grocery run? Transfer it to a lidded jar as soon as you open it. The juice you're trying to save has nowhere to collect in a flat pouch. And none of this applies to the never-fermented "kimchi-flavored" slaw some supermarkets sell as a shortcut — that's not kimchi, and there's no real brine to save...