Kimchi

So, the time has arrived that I talk about Kimchi. It's great.

That's all, see ya!

Alright alright, how do you make kimchi. I'm by no means a chef or anything, but I like kimchi. And if I want to buy it from my local asian store... it's HELLISHLY expesive. Imagine 10 eur for 200-300g of kimchi. Where when I make my own with around 5 eur for around 3kg. Also, homemade is way better, I'm serious.

There are a shit ton of kimchi recipes around the internet but I'll share with you my take on it and the experiences I've had with it. I usually don't use rice flour for the paste, because apple/onion have enough bulk, and the rice doesn't really do much imho.

For the rice flour alternative tho, Maangchi has a good recipe.

The very first kimchi recipe I tried (and the one I am mostly going with) was from Joshua Weismann and it was this video. The recipe is also on his blog (https://www.joshuaweissman.com/post/kimchi).

What can be substituted in his recipe are:

daikon radishes (aka white radish) for black radish (cut them thinner though, they have a special spiciness to them) or even simple radish (cut it thin as well)
asian pear for an apple or normal pear, lol
sometimes when you really can't find spring onions/chives...
leek also works (but barely).

And what you can add are yellow onions, they work very well in the sauce. For grams, look at the blog post of Joshua Weismann, it's a good starting point, you don't have to be too accurate.

Usually my choice of ingredients are:

Napa Cabbage: 2 big pieces
Iodine Free Salt: enough, you'll see later on
Carrots: 2 medium/big pieces
White raddish: 1/2 piece
Green onions: around 6-7 medium pieces.
OR chives: a lot

And for the paste:

apple: 1 medium/large
or/and pear, you can do either or both really
yellow onion: 1 medium
garlic: ~30g-50g
ginger: ~50g-60g
fish sauce: ~60ml-70ml
optional: one tsp of shrimp paste.
korean red pepper flakes: ~80g

Highly important to have good pepper flakes that taste good (ideally gochugaru, aka korean red pepper flakes), not just seeds that are JUST spicy. It also helps with the color, the beautiful red color can't be achieved with seeds.

What can be skipped in my opinion are the radishes.

Well then, how do you make kimchi. I highly suggest watching Joshua Weismann's video and making his, and then if you want extra steps, here.

As a first try, I suggest cutting the cabbage as shown in the video, bite size pieces, it'll be easier. Shove them in a bowl and salt them heavily, think oversalted, and add a bit more.
Let the cabbage sit for around 4 hours. (ideally this much, but if you're in a hurry you can do even 1 hour)
Until then, prepare the other vegetables, cut things in strips, if they're too thin you won't feel a bite to them. I usually do something like julienne. If you're using black radish, cut it to fine julienne, or if you enjoy the taste, bigger. The veggies of one of my batches were cut like this.
Shove the ingredients for the paste in a food processor and make the paste.
IMPORTANT: Add all the ingredients EXCEPT the red pepper flakes, otherwise the paste will be too dry and the food processor will struggle. Combine the red pepper flakes only at the end after the paste is done.
After the cabbage soaked for 4 hours or however much you decided to let it, wash it thoroughly under running water to wash all the excess salt. The amount of salt that we need is already absorbed in the cabbage.
Combine everything and put in a glass jar, or plastic box (food safe and BPA free) and push it down so to pack it tightly. Cover with lid, burp every 2 or so days.

You can of course eat some of the kimchi right away. Let the rest stay happily outside at room temperature to ferment for around 3-7 days (taste at 3rd day and see if you like the amount of acidity) and then let it rest in the fridge for around a week and you'll have the best kimchi possible. After the taste at day 3, you can decide if it's acidic enough or has fermented enough, if it doesn't have any acidity, let it out more.

How long does it stay in the fridge? I'd say definitely at least 6 months, even a year. It does become more acidic with time, because it ferments more.

What can you do with the kimchi? I usually eat from it when making rice bowls, you can stir-fry it, make a stew with it or when you need an acidic companion for other dishes. It goes on a lot of things, it's seriously delicious.

How does fermentation work? We'll explore that some other time, I have to talk about it quite a bit, I'm in love with it. But I can't ever explain it better than the book The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz.

That's my take on kimchi, it's worth trying it at least once in your life, I fell in love instantly (I usually fall in love with fermented foods, so it's not new). If you want something easier, I'd suggest sauerkraut (salt, cabbage and patience).

Around one year ago (3rd of April 2020) I made a batch of kimchi, and I apparently took pictures. ![[Pasted image images/IMG_20210919_194702.jpg]]

Hope you like it, let me know how it came out at: rexu@onawoodenblock.com