Postby trutherous » March 16th, 2010 5:31 am
The photo: the Korean market nearby had only small cabbages that time -- I like the big ones best.
I'll give you the quick recipe in English:
Actually I don't measure with a cup or spoon, I do things by the handful. I will give approximate amounts, but anyone attempting this recipe should adjust for personal taste:
Baechu Kimchi (can be adjusted for other types of vegetable kimchi)
배추 김치
Let's say this recipe calls for 5 medium size napa cabages:
First remove any obviously damaged or bug infested outer leaves. Next slice the cabbage heads into 1/4 s from top to bottom. Then I slice off most of the thick bottom stem but let enough remain so the leaves stay together. Next I take my knife and ruff off about half of the yellow-green inside leaf ends.
Now the cabbage is ready to wash. I use a large bucket of warm water and add sea salt to make it very strong brine, then plunge the cabbage 1/4s under and wash them thoroughly to remove any dirt, bugs, or left over pesticides from the farm. I use the warm salty bring because it cleans well, kills many of the unwanted bacilli (I am bad-germ paranoid), and the warmth helps speed up the cabbage weeping stage. After washing in the brine shake off excess water - no need to rinse.
Now the cabbage is ready for weeping, this helps remove excess water from the cabbage. Spread a very light coating of sea salt on the cut surfaces of the cabbage 1/4s and place then in a large colander where they can weep for 3-5 hours. Another trick is to place them in a large kitchen bag with lots of holes poked in the bottom and support the bag with sticks. A great deal of water should weep out of the cabbage -- like 2 quarts.
Final rinse - I like to rinse the cabbage in fresh water after weeping to remove excess salt. Of course you have to let the water drain off again, but only for a few minutes. This way I can more accurately control the amount of salt by adding salt to the sauce. If all was done well the cabbage should have only a very slight salty taste at this time.
Now that the cabbage is ready I begin to prepare other things that will be added. These will be chopped, sliced, or shredded rather coarsely: things I usually add depending on my mood: 2 cups of green onions, a cup of shredded carrots, a cup of shredded or sliced Moo 무 (big white Korean radish), shredded large Korean pear, or apple, or 2 peaches for sweetness (yes I said peaches! - don't freak out) set these items aside for now. Of course you can also throw in a few diced hot peppers if you are daring.
Sauce:
The fishy part: put 1/8 cup salted baby shrimp 새우젓, and 1/8 cup washed raw fresh squid parts in a blender, add 1 cup of water and puree, next strain this goo through a sieve (stirring with a spoon) and collect only the juice.
Next, in a large mixing bowl mix the shrimp juice with 1/3 cup crushed chopped garlic, 1/8 cup chopped ginger, 1/2 cup sea salt, and 2 cups of Korean red pepper (it is best if you use two kinds of red pepper, one for spice (heat) and the other for a rich pepper flavor). Now mix in all those extras like the radish and carrot mentioned above. Let it stand about 10-20 minutes for the salt to dissolve, and mix it again. Now taste the sauce - it should taste a little more salty than how you want the kimchi to taste.
Now you can mix all the ingredients together in a large tub, being sure to get the sauce evenly spread through all the cabbage. After you have thoroughly mixed the sauce in you should taste it to see the salt content and heat. Be very careful adding salt at this point, especially sea salt, it takes a long time to dissolve and you can end up with kimchi too salty to eat. Anyway, it's better to make kimchi a little more insipid than salty.
MAKING MIXING EASY: put all the stuff in a medium-large kitchen bag and roll it around, turn it upside down, etc. Tenderly! Be careful not to bruise the cabbage too much.
Fresh kimchi should be placed in LARGE jars or containers and set in a cool place to ferment a couple of days at least before eating. Since I don't have a kimchi refrigerator I leave my kimchi on the kitchen counter for a couple days (depending on the weather) and then put it in the regular refrigerator. Depending on conditions it should reach it's peak of flavor in 1-3 weeks.
Note: Kimchi ferments better in large quantities than in small jars. Leave about 1 1/2 inches of space at the top of the jar and leave the lid a little loose, or you will have kimchi juice all over the place as it begins to ferment and rises to the top of the jar.
Other tricks: adding 1 heaping tablespoon of honey to the sauce will slow the ripening time and preserve the kimchi for several weeks longer than it's usual souring time.
Sounds like a lot of work right? Nah, once you get it down it takes about 2 hours of actual work.
About common bacillus that typically ferments kimchi: I have had first hand experience examining kimchi at various stages of fermentation using a high power microscope while working as a volunteer at 8th army hospital lab in 1984, and that in the presence of a reputable microbiologist . It was interesting to see how within a day a single strain of bacilli would take over and rapidly increase in population. Our microbiologist swore that these were a "sister species of lacto-bacilli" and "probably very good for digestion."
갑자기 보쌈이 먹고 싶어졌어요!!
