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Kimchi, Yummmm.


I love how the kimchi in those jars look. I made the kimchi. That's right. Me! Call me vain, I don't care. I can't stop looking at the kimchi. It looks like real kimchi, by golly. It even smells like kimchi.

Today is the second day the kimchi has been sitting at room temperature. The lids are loosely screwed so the kimchi has breathing room. Otherwise, the kimichi will do precisely what the Husband likes to say, after I tell him the lids are barely screwed, "They'll blow their tops off!" I think he'd be pleased to see that happen.  

This is the second time I've made kimchi. The first batch was okay. It didn't start tasting like kimchi until it had been in the refrigerator for a long while. That's not good kimchi. I can eat half a jar of the fermented spiciness by myself. Feed me kimchi and rice, I'm happy. Real good kimchi, I'm delirious. Oooh.

I read several kimchi recipes to come up with my own synthesization. Here was my process.

Prepping the Napa Cabbage.  The cabbage needs to sit for 24 hours in salty water, so I got a large metal bowl in which one large Napa cabbage cut in bite-size pieces can soak.

I cut the cabbage lengthwise in two, cut each piece in half lengthwise, then cut each quarter into bite-size pieces. The cabbage was washed and drained then thoroughly tossed with about a 1/4 cup of Celtic salt, after which I covered it with  cold water. I put a sheet of parchment paper on the cabbage then placed a bowl full of lemons on top of that so the cabbage stays squished down.

Making the Kimchi ingredients. I cut 12 to 14 garlic cloves and a piece of ginger about one index-finger long and two index-fingers wide. They were tossed into a mini food processor with about 2 tablespoons of Korean red pepper flakes and enough apple juice to make a runny paste.

I wanted green onions and carrots to go in my kimchi so I thinly sliced the green tops of a yellow onion and shredded three carrots.

Assembling the Kimchi. The salty cabbage got rinsed, drained, and mixed thoroughly with all the other ingredients. (I wore a pair of plastic gloves so I wouldn't blind myself should I touch my eyes with spicy fingers). The final step: I crammed the cabbage tightly into jars, slightly screwed the lids on the jars, and set them aside at room temperature for all to burble and gurgle, burp and fart for three days.  Each day, I stick a butter knife down the jar to help the bubbles do their thing.

On day four (this Sunday, yay!), the Husband and I shall eat the kimchi.  Anything left over goes in the fridge.

Comments

  1. I am not familiar with kimchi. Glad you got a good batch. Yeah, those jars look pretty awesome.

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    Replies
    1. It's spicy fermented cabbage that's a part of the Korean diet. Yummm. I'm drooling as I remember the taste of the best kimchi I've ever eaten (where? that I can't recall). The other food stuck in my memory box is a slice of lemon meringue pie that I ate in cowboy country on the Big Island of Hawaii in 1983. :-)

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  2. We had kimchi in a produce department I worked at. It didn't sell too well

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    Replies
    1. I don't like to buy the mass-produced kimchi in the produce section. It's not worth the cost. I'm a snob and will wait for the chance to buy an enormous jar at a Korean market.

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  3. Color me Impressed . . . and grateful for the recipe . . . I always wondered how to make it.

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    Replies
    1. This is a very modified recipe. If I was more ambitious I would try making kimchi the traditional way, using precise measurements and following steps exactly, but there's something to buying yummy kimchi from a Korean market that makes its own. :-)

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  4. Those jars are works of art! :)

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    Replies
    1. They sure were. They lost their sparkle though. If I make kimchi again, I'm going to let the brined cabbage drain for several hours before I mix in the spices.

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  5. Hmmm …. I am not familiar with it either - would it be a stretch to call it Korea's answer to sauerkraut?

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  6. I'm glad you enjoy this Kimchi because this is not for me...I am not a cabbage person

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    Replies
    1. Other than kimchi and sauerkraut, I can skip the cabbage.

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Thanks for the good cheer. :-)

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