Homemade Kimchi

Its probably just a matter of time before I started making some homemade kimchi right? Hence my earlier post on the Korean ingredients here.

Can’t really tell which is easier, making Nonya Acar or kimchi because I haven’t made the former before either. A lot of Malaysian’s tastebuds tend to prefer acar – guess we grew up with this dish so its a more familiar taste and the ingredient which I think makes this dish so flavourful is the roasted crushed peanuts. Funnily, I’m only so-so with acar. Definitely have a softer spot for kimchi – its sourish and spicy taste makes any meal more appetising.

The process is not difficult but a little tedious. Anyway, felt very accomplished at the end.

The recipe used is largely based from sunflower’s blog. Other references I found equally as useful if not inspirational are foodloverscreation and davidlebovits.com who used white vinegar in his mixture. Since I've tasted very vinegary kimchi before (not his fault since it was bought from the night market and prepared by someone else), it wasn't the same taste I wanted to reproduce.


Ingredients

2 small napa cabbage
1/4 cup sea salt

1 small daikon, grated
1 Chinese pear, grated
half a carrot, grated

1 large bunch of spring onions, cut into large but equal pieces

40g glutinous rice flour
5-8 tbsp Korean chili powder (gokchugaru) , less if you think its too spicy
1-2 tbsp Korean chili pepper paste (gochujang), more for the red colour

A couple of dashes of fish sauce - used Thailand brand, more if you prefer

1 cup liquid - reserve juice from pear and daikon + water if required

1 small nob fresh ginger, about size of your thumb
3 pips garlic
40g Korean salted shrimp

Method

1. Rinse and wash the cabbage properly before cutting them into quarters. Some people prefer to cut the kimchi into bite size pieces, I prefer to retain the centre core heart as I think it looks much prettier. Found a few unwelcome wiggly guest so wash well ok!!

2. Take small handfuls of sea salt, sprinkle in between each layer of the base and leaves. Soak the cabbage in a large deep bowl of water for at least 1 day. Make sure they are submerged by covering with a heavy plate. At the end of this process the leaves should be a little limp and you are able to bend the stem back gently without breaking.

When ready to use, rinse again with fresh water, getting rid of excess salt. Gently squeeze out any excess water and set aside until paste is ready to be applied.

3. To prepare the kimchi paste.

a) Cut the spring onions into equal lengths.

b) Grate the daikon, carrot and pear. Gently squeeze the juice out from the daikon and pear and set aside. Keep the juice.

c) In a small saucepan, pour 1 cup of vege-juice or top up with some water to make one cup. Stir in and dissolve 40g of glutinous rice flour. Using low heat cook and continuously stir this mixture until slightly thicken, about 3 min. Set aside and cool slightly.

d) Pound or blend ginger, garlic and shrimp together. The shrimp adds a better flavour instead of using white vinegar but its a good substitute if you can't get your hands on the preserved salted shrimp.

Mix thoroughly the flour mixture with the pounded shrimp paste, 1-2 tbsp hot pepper chili paste, 5-8 tbsp of hot chili powder (didn't taste that spicy to me), 1 tbsp sugar and a couple of dashes of fish sauce, add more fish sauce if required.

4. In a large bowl mix together the kimchi paste with the grated pear, daikon, carrot and spring onions. With this mixture and using a pair of gloves, layer into each leave section of the cabbage rubbing all over before dividing and storing them into containers.

If you are using bite size pieces of cabbage, add them all to the mixture, making sure that they are well coated with the kimchi paste.

5. Leave marinated cabbage in room temperature for 4 hours or up to 24 hours for a deeper and more pungent flavour before storing them into the refrigerator.


Note that newly marinated kimchi is a little 'dry', ie. no juice but don't worry because of the ingredients used, some liquid will appear later as the vegetable 'sweats'. You can also start consuming right away, no need to wait unless you want a deeper flavour.

The refrigerated kimchi will continue to ferment slowly in the refrigerator over time, becoming more sour and flavorful with each passing day. As long as you use clean utensils to take out the required portions you want to consume, it will keep up to a month.

Kamsahamnida