Simplified Kimchi

Na Du Se Kimchi!

I must say Kdrama not only successfully promoted Korea tourism worldwide; even the Korean food culture has now slowly blended into our daily cooking.

Today in this blog, follow up on my coverage of my Korea trip, I would like to introduce a simple way of making Kimchi. Kimchi is widely known as one of Korean famous signature foods. It is also of my favorite Korean foods.

During our Seoul and JeJu trip, we noticed nearly every meals we had regardless whether rice, noodle, BBQ or steamboat, various banchan or side dishes would be served along too. Amongst these banchan, Kimchi which regards as Korean National dish is most often served.

Kimchi is a spicy, fermented pickled vegetable with variety of seasonings. The main vegetable used for this dish is napa/long cabbage and its key seasoning is the Korean red chili powder flakes and the common natural ferment agents comprising of fruit with citric acid such as ginger, apple and pear.

The traditional Kimchi making is very tedious and time consuming with a long fermentation process. Shown here is a simplified version, introduced by Wai. She initially found this recipe on the Internet but at the end it was her Indonesia maid, who has mastered the skill of the Kimchi making process instead.

3 weeks ago, she invited us to her house to have our Korea photos sharing cum kimchi making session. I took the opportunity to record down the whole process. Shared below is the Simplified Kimchi Making video.

Here in Malaysia, it is not cheap to buy Kimchi over the counters. Furthermore, we will never know what sort of added preservatives are in it. This Kimchi making process is simpler than I expected. It probably can’t get any easier than this; no excuse not to try eh?

Ingredients

Vegetables:

2 napa cabbage/ long cabbage

• 1 1/2 daikon radish thinly sliced
• 1 small or ½ medium carrots, sliced into matchsticks
• Few stalks of spring onion, cut into 4-5 cm in length
• Kimchi paste:
• 3 small apples cut into cubes
• 1 pear cut into cubes
• 1 1/2 bulb of garlic (9-10 garlic cloves), smash
• 2 1" pieces ginger, sliced
• 1 ½ onion diced
• Seasoning:
• 6 tbs. fish/anchovy sauce
• 6 tbs. Korean chili flakes ( to your liking, depend how spicy you can take)
• 2 tbs. sugar
• Brine cabbage
• 6 tbs. salt
• 2 and ½ bowl of water

Directions

1. Cut off the stem part of cabbage. Cut each cabbage leaf in half or 3-4 section (depends on the size). Place the cabbage leaves in a large mixing bowl.

2. Combine salt and water pour over cabbages in mixing bowl; soak cut cabbage in salt brine for at least an hour.

3. After an hour, the cabbage will be shortened into half size.

4. Rinse twice and drain thoroughly.

5. Place drained cabbages in a large mixing bowl

6. To make kimchi filling, combine garlic, ginger, onion, cubed apples and pear in a blender and puree until smooth.

7. Add Korean chili flakes, sugar, fish sauce and pour the puree into mixing bowl

8. Toss all together to coat evenly and mixed well.

9. Adjust seasoning as you wish.

10. Pour the mixed kimchi into a bigger container with lid and leave at room temperature for 2 days 1 night to ferment.

11. The next day before night, transfer into airtight glass container and refrigerator it.

12. Fermented Kimchi stay fresh in the fridge and it will continue to ferment in low temperature.