Kimchi
Ingredients
- Things you should always have: 8 cloves garlic, S&P, 6-7 green onions, sugar
- Aromatics: 1-2 tsp shrimp paste, 1/4 cup fish sauce, 1/2 cup gochugaru (Korean red chili flakes), MSG/beef stock
- 1.5 heads of napa cabbage
- Rice flour/porridge
- 1-2 big fat asian pears
Directions
- Chop cabbage lengthwise.
- Brine cabbage, with the ratio of half cup of salt to one head of cabbage. Soak for 30m-1hr. Rub extra salt near the stem, because it’s harder to penetrate. The cabbage should be wilted and rubbery from the cell walls breaking down.
- Meanwhile, create the slurry. Heat in water + rice, or the rice flour if you have it. Add the pepper flakes, MSG, fish sauce, shrimp paste.
- Mince garlic, pear, and green onions. Mix in slurry.
- Wash cabbage to remove salt. Mix in a bowl. Add sugar and salt.
- Usually we would use sliced radish, but I used pear.
- Fold slurry in between folds of cabbage. Chop cabbage into thirds, then smother in with slurry again. You can try it raw :). You should use gloves here, my fingers smelled great for hours.
- Place in mason jar. Room temp for 2 days, then fridge for 2 weeks.
Pictures
Figure 1: I used leftover rice porridge since I didn’t have rice flour.
Figure 2: After mixing the sauces together.
Figure 3: Make sure you get sauce in between the layers, then cut into thirds, or whatever size fits your mason jar.
Figure 4: Shoutout to Whole Foods for stocking a kimchi that was nasty enough to make me make my own.
