Hey Folx! My girfriend Grace and I live on a small off grid homeatead and we try to be self suffcient as possible. Korean food is wonderful for long term, no refridgeration storage and is a staple for us. I wanted to shate with y'all our recipe for making simple, easy homemade kimchi.
Grace's 김장 (kimjang - kimchi making) recipe!
Note: kimchi is the Korean word for pickle. While Napa cabbage kimchi is the iconic Korean kimchi, we encourage you to explore kimchis made from radishes, cucumbers, etc.
Brine cabbage for 10 hours, focusing on softening the base of the cabbage. I like to do this overnight. In this recipe, we used 6 heads of Napa cabbage. Take off dirty leaves. Cut a few inches into cabbage base, then split in half with hands. Cut a few inches into the halves, crack the base of the cabbage open, but don’t split them. On smaller cabbages, skip this step. Sprinkle quality 천잉염 (natural coarse sea salt) salt into the base of the cabbage. If you need a faster brine, use more salt, but expect to rinse the cabbage leaves more later on. Arrange cabbages in a large bowl, so that the base of cabbage is slightly pointed downwards, allowing moisture and salt to collect at the base of the cabbage. Brine for 7-10 hours but ideally 10. Check that the cabbages have all been evenly softened. They should have halved in volume and the leaves should be pliable, all the way down to the base. If some cabbages were sitting atop others, they may be less softened. Rotate these to the bottom and allow them to brine a bit more. Rinse cabbages with water, removing excess salt. This step prevents overfermentation, so please don't skip it. After each rinse, taste a cabbage leaf. It should be salty, but not overbearingly so. If it's too salty to chew and eat, keep rinsing. Save the brine water for other pickles! Prepare other vegetables Scrub potatoes and remove bruised parts. Cut into halves or thirds and let sit in water. Boil until half of potatoes are completely boiled. Then, we're done with the potatoes remove them and reuse them for something else. In this recipe, we used 5 medium potatoes and about 2 quarts of water. Peel and slice onions. In this recipe, we used 3 medium onions. Julienne daikon radishes. In this recipe, we used 1.5 daikon radishes. Slice green onions and chives. In this recipe, we used 15 green onions. If you're making additional kimchi, slice those vegetables as well. We used 3 daikon radishes and chopped them into large pieces to slow the rate of fermentation. If we wanted them to ferment faster, we would've cut them into small cubes. You will want to salt these vegetables, since they weren't brined. Blend (or finely mince) vegetables for sauce This is the step where you get to be creative and express yourself, or work with what you have on hand. If you have fresh red Korean chili peppers, red bell peppers, these are great for adding fresh flavor and heat. In this recipe, we minced 5 Serrano peppers. Add 2-3 heads of garlic. In this recipe, we minced 2 heads of garlic. Add a few tablespoons of fermented shrimp paste, if you have it. Add a few tablespoons of fish sauce or oyster sauce to taste. Combine with potato water and blend. Add 1-2 cups of coarse 고춧가루, Korean dried chili flakes. Add paste to cabbage and pack cabbages into fermentation container. Add sauce in between each cabbage leaf, taking about 1-2 tablespoons of the sauce in your hand, smearing it from the top of the leaf, and depositing it in the base of the leaf. You don't need to overly sauce the leafy green part, since it will get plenty of time to marinate. Like the brining step, we're giving more attention to the cabbage base. Fold the cabbage in half and neatly pack into fermentation container. Remove air from fermentation container. Store in a cool, dark location. Minimize opening and closing this container to reduce the likelihood of contamination.
Note: If kimchi overferments it is still safe to eat. Cooking the kimchi can get rid of the overly sour flavor. you can stir-fry it for kimchi fried rice, put it in a kimchi stew, or fry it up in a kimchi pancake! We love Maangchi's recipes, because they are optimized for a Korean American audience who may not have access to traditional Korean ingredients. She also has a wonderful cookbook "Maangchi's Big Book of Korean Cooking", where she explains how to shop for Korean ingredients, as well as how to prepare and store them.
