Homemade Kimchi

Yesterday, I made kimchi! The well-known spicy pickled cabbage dish of Korea...

As difficult as it sounds, as long as you have all the ingredients, it's really no rocket science -- you just mix everything and let it sit there to do its thing -- YES, it's THAT easy! I made kimchi a couple years ago, but I remember that it was too sour and I added too much garlic.

This time I stuck close to a suitable recipe I found here, as it was easy and the ingredients were very accessible.. Here's what I put in my kimchi~~

• 1 head of Napa cabbage (also known as siu choy)


• 6 stalks of green onions


• Sea salt (regular salt will do just fine as well)


• Warm water


• 5 cloves of garlic, minced


• 1 to 1-1/2 tablespoons of red pepper powder


• 2 tablespoons of fish sauce


• 1 tablespoon of sugar

First, wash the head of Napa cabbage thoroughly. As you can see, my cabbage is not a fresh green colour as it should be. I was out of luck that day -- the produce store did not have big green heads like they usually do.



Wash all leaves thoroughly and cut into large chunks. Do not worry about them being too big as they will shrink down into manageable bite-size pieces.



Put all your cut cabbage into a large bowl. Make sure there is enough room for you to mix the cabbage around later.



I used about 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of sea salt (depleting much of my salt shaker). The recipe uses way more and I did not like the idea of using that much salt, so I lessened it by quite a bit. Mix the sea salt with some warm water until salt is dissolved.



Pour the salt water mixture over the cabbage and give it a good toss with your hands, as if you were tossing a salad. Now here's the hard part. Let it sit for 4 hours (or more, if you like) and mixing it every hour, so that every piece of cabbage has a chance to sit in the salt water for some time.

*** 4 hours later ***



Your cabbage should look wilted down like this. I think it will be more shrunk down if it sat for a longer time, or if you used more salt (unlike the salt-phobic me).



Red pepper powder! It packs a powerful punch, I tell ya! The recipe says a quarter cup but I felt that it was a bit much. I used 1 and 1/2 tablespoon and it was still too spicy! I would say adjust it to your spicy liking!



Mix it with enough warm water until it forms a thick paste. This is where all the spicyness of the kimchi comes from.



Add to your bowl of wilted cabbage. No, do not mix it yet! Patience, my friend!



Add the minced garlic to the bowl. I used 5 cloves, not too much or too little. I like garlic but I won't repeat my mistake of putting too much garlic again! If you are not a big garlic fan you could put less, but kimchi does require some garlic. On the contrary, I prefer not to go near ginger so I left it out altogether in my kimchi.



Slice the spring onions at an angle, into slivers -- large or small is really your preference. I really love the taste of spring onions so I put lots in my kimchi and in larger pieces.



Add the spring onions to the bowl. Great big party about to happen! Wait for it!



Funky-smelling stuff. That's fish sauce! It's a little pungent for me, to be honest, but somehow it makes everything taste really good. I added two tablespoons of it.



The recipe calls for an apple/pear/onion mix but that sounds kind of odd to me. The key objective here is a tinge of sweetness, so what else is better than fancy, traditional sugar?

And now comes the fun part!



Get your plastic gloves on and have a wild time mixing all that spicy goodness into each and every piece of the cabbage, making sure the ingredients are well combined. You DO need the gloves because the red pepper powder can be quite painful on sensitive hands (and eyes, if you happen to rub them). Make sure the ingredients are well distributed; you won't want to have a burst of red pepper paste in the middle of your meal.



Here's mine after mixing. Looking like the real thing, eh? Time to put them into jars..



I managed to fit the entire big bowl of kimchi into 2 jars, one plastic and one glass. Now you are all done! Just let the jars sit at room temperature for 24 hours and then you can pop it into the fridge, ready to eat whenever you need!



The next day, the cabbage had shrunk enough so that I could fit the half-full glass jar of kimchi in with the rest in the plastic jar, and here's a picture of it! You can see it's nicely fermenting if you see bubbles forming in the liquid, and the smell will also give a clear sign whether it's doing well.



I had a taste and it was GOOD! Not too salty because I did not put too much salt, so that's a little healthier. I think I went a little overboard with the red pepper powder because man, it was HOT! Note to self: next time go with less red pepper powder. The fish sauce gave it the distinct taste which I did not achieve in my previous attempt.

I'll say it's a success! And how to eat it? You can eat it with some plain white rice, or cut it up into smaller pieces for an omelette, or you can make kimchi fried rice! Which ever way you choose to eat it, it adds a spicy kick to your meal!

Enjoy making your own kimchi! Please let me know how it goes by leaving a comment!

♥ Nikki