I love kimchi. Of course I was raised on sauerkraut so it’s not much of a leap to spicy sauerkraut. I’d been looking for years in our local Asian markets (and when I say local, I mean in our closest biggest city, about an hour away). I could never find the right pepper. Finally last weekend I found a KOREAN grocery and a very helpful young girl. She wanted to know how many cabbages I would pickle and then sold me a lifetime supply of pepper 😂. So I picked up a Savoy cabbage, which wasn’t cheap, I tell you. But it was a lovely specimen. I also picked up daikon, green onions, and an Asian pear. I prepped by watching lots of utube tutorials. It looked remarkably easy. I started by chopping the cabbage and soaking it in salty water. Many of the videos, even the ones in Korean, showed the cabbage being chopped into bite sized pieces, which is what I did. A few showed a more labor intensive method of leaving the cabbage quartered and salting the layers of leaves all individually. Too much work!!
I made a strong brine and left the cabbage to soak for several hours, tossing it a bit every time I walked by. The thickest part of the cabbage should bend when you fold it, not break.
I made the spice paste, with garlic, ginger, pepper, spring onions, daikon radish, julienned garden carrots, and some julienned Asian pear. I’m not sure why, many of the recipes had apple and pear, and some even had honey or sugar!! Maybe food for the little microbes? Anyway I just used a bit of Asian pear.
Once the cabbage was soft enough I triple rinsed and combined the spice mix with the cabbage. I was supposed to use gloves but just used my spatula. Now my spatula is orange and smells like kimchi. Sigh.
I packed it all into a big jar. Amazingly it all fit!!
I set it on a plate on the counter and barely tightened the lid. It off gasses as it ferments and I didn’t want an explosion. I kept tasting and it was hot!! but oh so good. Couldn’t stop tasting it.
As I washed up the dishes I saw a deer bedded down in the front yard.
She lay in the sun for quite awhile before the ponies began to annoy her and she took off.
And for breakfast today I had rice and kimchi. It’s burbling away and oozing a bit.
I’ll leave it till tonight then wash up the outside and put it in the fridge. Scrummy!!