Well, I have made my first batch of kimchi. I think itI was pretty successful. Kimchi is Korean picked vegetables. I made mine the most simple possible. It’s kosher salt, water, napa cabbage, minced ginger, green onions and crushed red chili peppers. You toss it all in a jar and let in ferment for 3 to 6 days at 68ºF. It got quite a bit warmer than that but I still think it came out OK. I don’t really know if it’s any good because I’m not Korean, but it tastes pretty much like the stuff you can buy at the store.
My grandmother used to make the Japanese version of it (very similar but without the chili peppers). I tried to make the Japanese version of it a year or two ago. I bought a plastic pickle press but it didn’t really ferment enough and I gave up after what seemed like a pretty long time. The Japanese technique is a lot more labor intensive. You have to rub the salt into the leaves. The Korean method is way easier, just soak the napa cabbage in brine for 12 hours, chop everything else up and toss it in a jar and weigh it down with a ziploc of brine and then wait for 3 days.
Sort of, in small doses. My ex-sister-in-law is Korean and she made her own Kimchee. She added it to ramen noodles or Korean pancakes and I liked it that way. Never really ate it by itself. When I was still living at home my brother and his wife and kids had to move in with us for a while and she kept her jars of kimchee on the enclosed back porch. One of them exploded. It smelled like Kimchee out there for a long time.
Mmm. I’ve never made it myself but I buy it often. It’s good straight, on steamed rice. Great for cooking as well. I usually make a soup by combining it with bacon (just a small amount for flavor), cubed tofu, chicken stock, chili paste, maybe some sautéed onions, scallion, etc.
Which “Japanese version” did you try? There’s a great variety of Japanese pickled vegetables out there.
I adore kimchee! Even though I’m not a huge fan of the meat dishes in my local Korean restaurant (they’re a bit too sweet for me, although getting to cook the bulgoki at the table is fun), I’ll go out just for the kimchee and other sides that come with. Maybe next time I’ll just have chicken katsu (it’s a Korean and Japanese place) and a huge side of kimchee. Yum!
I usually just eat cabbage-y kimchee, but I’m interested in trying the other varieties. Do you think you’ll ever attempt making those, or are you sticking with cabbage?
The Japanese version was just napa cabbage and salt. The plastic squeezing box is tiny and I couldn’t really get the hang of it. My dad used to eat this yellow radish stuff. Daikon with something that makes it yellow. A local Japanese restaurant (sadly out of business) used to serve it with katsu donburi, which I can make a decent bachelor bastardized version. They also serve it with that fluorescent magenta pickled stuff which might be ginger, but I’m not sure.
I haven’t had much of a chance to indulge in Korean cuisine but I see lots of “Stew with kimchi” recipes on line. I’ll try one, or maybe just go with your version.
I’m pretty psyched to try some others, but I’ve really only had the cabbage stuff, so I’m a little gun shy about the stranger ones. Any recommendations? I succeeded earlier this year making half sour dill pickles, so I’m on the pickle bandwagon. The next batch will be cabbage and radish, as it’s not much different.
I got some bitter melon kimchee not long ago as a gift. Even though I like both kimchee and bitter melon (goya champuru!), I found out that bitter+hot = rusty. I don’t particularly recommend it.
The yellow Japanese daikon pickle is called takuan. It’s made with rice bran (nuka) and salt. Nowadays, a lot of the commercial stuff is coloured with turmeric I believe.
I’m a big fan of kimchi, although I’ll admit that I prefer the Japanese version of it.* I just find the authentic Korean recipe to be a bit overpowering.
*of kimchi, that is. Not tsukemono, which is what the OP seemed to be talking about.
Darryl, I see you make the korean kimchee with brine in a jar- Could you also just make it like traditional sauerkraut? Layers of cabbage, hot peppers, and salt in a crock left to ferment?
I’ve made kimchi several times (by definition Korean–Japanese may pickle cabbage, but it’s not kimchi), but ultimately found it easier just to buy. Getting the salt balance right is tricky; even the professionally produced kimchi doesn’t always get it right.
Your recipe is missing some sort of seafood. You really need a little shrimp, oyster or crab sauce in there. Kimchi lacking that will taste like it’s missing something, because it is.
We eat kimchi at every meal, although I refuse to eat it for breakfast. I like it better when it’s only partially fermented. Once it’s gone completely sour, it’s too much like sauerkraut.
Radish kimchi is good, too. That’s different than the Japanese-style pickled radish usually dyed yellow. It’s just like cabbage kimchi, but made with diced (Korean) radishes, including the greens. It has to soak in the brine longer and takes longer to ferment.
Count me as a kimchee lover, too. But we’ve never tried to make our own. Our local supermarket used to carry two kinds, “mild” and “hot,” but the mild was practically tasteless. Anyhow, I think we were the only ones buying it, and they’ve dropped it. Gotta find an Asian grocery store soon…
Like Pleonast, I’ve made homemade kimchi once or twice and it was very very good, but it’s too easy and cheap to buy.
I adore it myself. I could make a meal of the assorted kinds of kimchi that they serve you at a Korean restaurant (“panchan”), and a little rice. I especially love the little cubes of crunchy Korean radish in a kimchi sauce that my local tofu soup joint serves.
I looked up the recipe for sauerkraut in my Joy of Picking book. It looks like pretty much the same recipe as my kimchi except for the ginger. It looks like you use traditional American cabbage and slice it fine (unlike kimchi) and then let it ferment for a really long time (6 weeks, hence the greater sourness and softer body).
I’m probably going to try the nuka technique but I remember being traumatized as a child by seeing that crap. It looks like old vegetables in mud. I neglected to try it while I was in Japan. Now I regret it.
When kimchi goes too sour to eat, it’s perfect for making other stuff, like kimchi jjigae (a sort of stew like thing), or kimchi fried rice (don’t forget the spam!). I also do not recommend buying kimchi at the regular grocery store, because it’s probably going to be more sour. Find a good Asian grocery store (Korean if you can) and buy the kimchi from there that they people make themselves. It usually comes in bags instead of the professionally done jars. Also, make sure you triple bag that stuff or everything in your fridge will eventually start to smell/taste like kimchi. Alternatively, if you’re hardcore, you can buy an actual kimchi fridge from Korea that keeps everything at optimal temperature, or so they say, making it last long and deliciously.
Now I really wish my mom were closer.
My aunt’s sister-in-law is Korean and she would occasionally bring me back batches of it when she went to her brother’s house for Christmas and I really enjoyed it at the time though I’ve not had any in ages. I should really ask her if she can get me any more the next time I see her.
I never had an opportunity to go to Korea with said company! Is the restaurant Korean Barbeque Swan? What’s good to order? I’m completely unfamiliar with Korean cuisine. Maybe I’ll stop there the next time I’m shooting down to L.A.
Now that I think about it, the whole reason I got the Kimchi bug up my ass was because of a recent article in the L.A. Times about some Korean stew which required a couple of cups of kimchi juice. I’m all over the kimchi fried rice, do you have any recipes? I’ve got a couple of cans of Spam as I was trying to come up some recipes for the World Spam Cooking Championships. That shit is salty! Combined with kimchi, that is one high blood pressure sodium rush!
It is, indeed, Swan. Get the kimchi jeegei (sp?) soup. It’s soup made with kimchi and jelly noodles, hot and good. Also get a plate of bulgogi and bbq it yourself at the table. It comes with a ton of side dishes. You’ll want one or two other people with you to get all of that food.
Hmm… how to make kimchi fried rice? I’m not sure about any recipes, but the basic steps go as so:
Put a little oil down in the pan (whatever you want, I’m not picky)
Fry up some sour kimchi in there, it’s probably good to cut it in manageable sizes if it’s not already - by manageable, I mean something that you’re going to put in your mouth with rice.
When it’s fried, put the rice in along with spam (or beef or whatever you want)
Umm… fry it all.
Oh I almost forgot! You’ll need some gochujang, a sort of hot pepper paste, that’ll go with the kimchi. You know, on second thought, I think somebody else should post a recipe. I’m sure there are some. It’s just a great way to get rid of sour kimchi.
Well, this post was fairly worthless. But it has made me so hungry… I better make a trip out to the Super H tomorrow (DC area folk - it’s a great Asian grocery store the size of a normal grocery store).