The local supermarkets have been carrying jars of kimchee for a couple of years, now, but I’ve never had it before so I’ve been leery of trying it canned.
I pretty much love all of the Asian foods I’ve ever tried, but I live in southeastern Ohio and Korean is not something there’s all that much of here.
One site describes it as “Korean cabbage marinated in hot spicy chili, ginger, and garlic.” That sounds excellent. Is it accurate?
And is the stuff in jars any good (since that’s pretty much the only way I can try it right now)?
You find kimchee in jars because that’s basically how it’s made. Well, the old-timers buried it in crocks instead of using glass jars, but the principle is the same.
My smart-ass description of the stuff is “sauerkraut with a bad attitude”.
It’s hot, but not on the level of habaneros, more like cayenne. It’s vinegary. It has strange tastes I can’t describe but I assume are related to the pickling/fermenting process. And it’s sooooooo gooooooooood.
As to whether it’ll like you, you’ll just have to try it and see.
Some people actually will start to sweat the kimchee out. Most people will sweat a little from the heat, but some will sweat the odors of the actual kimchee. This can be disconcerting, to say the least.
It can also have, um, spectacular flatulant effects, in some people.
I think I knew they made it in jars, but I wonder about the quality of the brands I might find in rural Ohio. I mean, the county seat does have two Chinese restaurants, with genuine Chinese people! But that’s only been within the last year.
Are there notable brands?
As for sweating out kimchee, that’s… odd. Perhaps I’ll only try this on a Friday night when hubby is out of town.
There’s about a zillion different kinds of kim-chi… some are delicious, some are not (at least to me! ).
The standard cabbage-type kim-chi varies a lot by recipe and also by age. Personally, I like the aged “shin kim-chi” (or sour kim-chi) better than the fresh stuff. Astrogirl buys fresh kim-chi in a jar at the local Korean market, and lets it sit outside to rot for a few days to turn it into shin kim-chi… especially good when fried up with sam-gyup-sal and accompanied with a few bottle of soju!
That’s good eatin’!
(be prepared, though! It can be very odiferous… store carefully, or everything in your fridge will reek.)
Oh, man. I love kimchee! There used to be a Korean restaurant on Fireweed in Anchorage that had the best kimchee around. My roommate and I would eat it before we went hiking, as a general repellant (bears, bugs, mosquitos, other people.) Wonderful stuff. You’ll just have to try all the available brands, and see if there is one you really like. “Sauerkraut with an attitude” is a good description. The garlic and spices will seep out of your pores for days, so beware. Deoderant and showers can’t kill the aroma…you just have to wait until it exits your system.
The kimchi in the supermarket is really too thin and insipid for my tastes. Like the Astrocouple, I prefer mine aged so that it’s really pungnet. Baechu-kimchi is the variety most folks are familiar with, but I’m also fond of chonggak-kimchi, yulmu-kimchi, and kkakktugi.
Astroboy, you can keep the samgyupsal, give me the twaeji kalbi–and where are you finding soju? We have a huge Korean population here in NoVa, and a bottle of Green soju that would cost W1200 at the local corner shop in Seoul is $8.00 here!
And I really miss the pojang macha where I could get some kimchi pajon and ddong ddong ju.
And soju kettles at Polly’s on Hooker Hill in Itaewon sigh
My dad gets it all the time. To me, it smells like someone farted in a jar of cabbage and closed the lid real quick. I can’t stand the stuff. Fellow doper Oh Face loves the stuff, but I made her promise that when I see her again in Vegas in a couple weeks, she’ll brush her teeth before I get a kiss. She has THE worst taste in food. In fact, she onion choked me the last time I saw her!
This page has a big LONG list of types of kimchi. Website also has lots of recipes!
Kimchi is best when bought from sweet little Korean ladies in the Korean market who will correct your order. “You don’t want that - too little. Get the big jar and keep in the back of the refrigerator. It only gets better over time.” Thanks, Mrs. Rhee. Now if only this lovely woman would call us when she’s making oi kimchi (cucumbers instead of cabbage - mmmmmmmm). Always miss it.
If you don’t like saurkraut odds are you won’t like kimchi. Hot, spicy, sour, and good lord the smell. Kinda like rotten gym socks.
Now I feel the need to defend myself. Yes I like kimchee. I LOVE Korean food. It has so much flavor. I haven’t had it in a while though. Kimchee is great in small quantities, but I wouldn’t want to eat a lot of it in one sitting, it does smell pretty foul. And as for the onion incident, I found it to be rather hilarious.
Just remember, revenge is a dish best served cold…and with a side of smelly onions. Revenge will be mine…OH YES…it will be mine. Watch your ass in Vegas, Bunny.
Soldier’s in Korea, when faced with adversity, would often say “We’re in deep kimchee.” One needn’t ponder long to appreciate the aptness of the metaphor.
It gives off an unholy, festering reek when served hot. When cold, it will merely offend you with a hint of fetid pungence. It tastes precisely like what it is: wet, heavily-spiced compost. I’ve had the real thing, and I now summarily avoid it. One Korean post-doc used to stink up the entire lab with one small tupperware of the muck, microwaved for three minutes. He was a nice guy, but none of us were too upset when he moved on to another lab. Unfortunately, no one had the courage to say “Hey, Hyun-Su, would you mind not bringing that stank-ass concoction your wife makes for you indoors…ever again? Thanks!”
Twaeji kalbi! Man! That’s good stuff too! (did you ever make it to Chaeju-Do, gobear? BEST tweaji kalbi in Korea, hands down.)
Dang, I’m gonna have to talk the wife into Korean food tonight.
As for soju, the local Korean market here sells soju for something like 3 or 4 bucks a bottle. I don’t really like the stuff myself, but it does go well with Korean food. Now dong-dong-ju, on the other hand… yummy!
Hooker Hill in Itaewon? I vaguely remember that place… many headaches, much lost money, oy! And not all the bar girls were bar girls! :eek:
I adore kimchi. A local sushi bar used to have it on their buffet. The stuff in jars varies, but one of the big differences between brands is how much salt is in the mix. I don’t like it salty, but I do love it hot!
A jar from the local Harris Teeter costs about $2.50, and it’s less at the local asian groceries. Give it a shot!
Geez, now I’m getting hungry for Korean food again. I ate kimchi when I was in Korea, also bulgogi and mandu(steamed or fried). Twenty years ago, when I was in East Lansing Michigan there was a great Korean cafe, the food being authentic and not Americanized. I ate there a number of times, and it always seemed to surprise the staff when I used chopsticks instead of American tableware.
Strange. I can’t stand to even be in the same room with sauerkraut, but I loves me some good kimchi. There was a little neighborhood Korean restaurant near our home outside D.C. (Yett Gol, at the corner of Georgia and Randolph) that had just fabulous kimchi. Alas, now that I’m in New Orleans, while I can get all kinds of other good food, Korean just isn’t on the menu.
Papa Tiger has spent quite a bit of time in Korea and loves almost any hot, spicy food, but I guess got on a “winter kimchi” bus once and has never recovered from the experience, so avoids it like the plague. Whereas I don’t generally like hot foods, but kimchi is a constant delight.
There’s only one way to find out if you like kimchi: try it!
Even here in Alabama there are a number of oriental (Korean) markets. I go there mainly for rice, chilis and nam prik, but they all have home-made Kimchi. Various types. As a foreigner, I am not in the loop on the varieties, but each type is wonderful, but can be noxious to the folks in the office.
The last I got had chilis and onions wiht the greens. Usually, I find them mild (I really like chilis), but this was potent and had me sweating.
Why is it that europeans, for the most part, stay away from fermented vegetables (saurkraut as an exception)?
Could it be that many rotten things don’t taste very good? There’s a certain amount of rot that is within reason. A wad of cabbage that moulders but a little may garnish a frankfurter inoccuously enough. But when that cabbage is a full-on wall of festering stench, to quote Layne Staley (a la the screaming crescendo) I STAY AWAY!
Is Kim-chee good? Oh yes. So, so, so good. But then I grew up on it. In my experience, the stuff in stores generally sucks. Especially if you get it from a big chain grocery store’s ethnic food aisle. Of course, the only really good kim-chee is the stuff my mom makes, but the next best thing is to go down to your local oriental grocery store (is it still PC to call them that?) and get the jars there. I recommend not less than 2 plastic bags tightly tied around it. Barring that, get a fridge for your garage and put it in there. Oddly, I much prefer fresh kim-chee over shin kim-chee. Oh, and I hate saurkraut.
Once you’ve become hooked on it, I suggest eating it with spaghetti. Or for a more traditional Korean dish, boil it in a beef broth (I think that’s how it’s made) for kim-chee jeegae (I have no idea how to spell Korean words in English). You can eat that with some rice and have a fantastic meal. Can’t wait until I go home in a couple of weeks to get some real, home-made kimchee, with some saam, bulgogi, baap, gochujang, etc, etc…
).
And not all the bar girls were bar girls! :eek:
:eek: 
:mad: