Recipe: Perfect Kimchi

Kimchi. Kimchi is a traditional Korean dish made of seasoned vegetables and salt. Koreans eat it at nearly every meal. It can be fresh, like a salad, or it can be fermented.

Kimchi is a spicy side dish made from fermented vegetables and Korean red pepper, and is loaded with potential health benefits. It is a staple of the Korean diet, and its popularity has surged worldwide. Making kimchi was historically a way for people to preserve vegetables for the long harsh Korean winter, before the advent of modern refrigeration. You can cook Kimchi using 19 ingredients and 15 steps. Here is how you cook that.

Ingredients of Kimchi

1. Prepare 2 of Chinese leaf cabbages (I bought two of them and had about 900g for two.).
2. You need 90 g of salt (10-12% of cabbage preferably sea salt).
3. You need 450 ml of (10-12% of cabbage x 5) water.
4. It's of [Sauce].
5. You need 1/2-1 of apple (about 200-400g).
6. It's 1/2 cloves of garlic (about 40g).
7. You need of about 40 g Root ginger, skin peeled.
8. It's 1 bunch of spring onion.
9. You need of (option) 1/3 bunch of Chinese chives (nira), if you can get them. Cut into 3cm. If you do not have it, cut half of spring onion 3cm and the other half small.
10. It's 50 ml of fish sauce (I could not get Korean 魚醤 in the UK.).
11. It's 1-2 TBS of fine chilli powder (if Korean chilli, 3 TBS).
12. It's 1-2 TBS of coarser chilli powder (if Korean chilli, 3 TBS).
13. You need 2 tsp of sugar.
14. You need of optional kelp Kombu.
15. You need of optional niboshi.
16. It's of [Optional vegetables].
17. Prepare of Daikon radish.
18. Prepare of cucumber.
19. It's of carrots.

With the introduction of chili peppers, it didn't take. Borrowed from Korean 김치 (gimchi), derived from 침채 (chimchae) in the late Koryo dynasty. Doublet of kimuchi. kimchi (usually uncountable, plural kimchis). A Korean dish made of vegetables, such as cabbage or radishes, that are salted, seasoned.

Kimchi step by step

1. Cut Chinese cabbages into serving sizes. Traditionally, cabbages are not cutting into serving sizes and put sauces between leaves. However, this way is much easier to handle! So cut cabbages..
2. Separate them into hard parts and tender leaves..
3. Wash them with running water and drain them..
4. In a big bowl or a big pan, sprinkle salt on to harder leaves and pour water. (The amount of salt is 10-12% of cabbage and water is 5 times of salt). Then put a plate and put something as a weight..
5. Leave about 30 mins and add softer leaves. Then put plate and a weight again. And leave it for another about two hours..
6. After three hours, rinse with running water and drain the softened cabbages and taste it. If it is too salty, put them in fresh water and get rid salt a little bit. Make the salt level as Japanese asatzuke: not too salty but salty. Leave them in a drain for about 3 hours in order to drain excess water..
7. While waiting for the cabbage to dry, make the sauce. (optional "dashi" stock) If you have kelp and niboshi, boil 30ml of water. Pour over kelp and niboshi and leave until room temperature to get “dashi” which gives depths into Kimuchi..
8. Peel the ginger skin. Please use tea spoon to peel it. It is the safest and easiest way to peel ginger. Usually, Brtish people do not know about it. Also peel skin of garlic..
9. Cut spring onion. Half of them as small pieces and the other half about 3cm. If you have chinese chives (Nira), please use them and cut Nira as 3cm and all spring onion small! Taste much better with Nira but I cannot find it here. You could get it in Japanese or chinese supermarkets in London..
10. Try to use a finer chilli and a bit coarser chilli. But if you cannot find two types of chilli powders, just used one. Mix the chilli well in a bowl. If you use Korean chilli powder, use 3 tablespoons each as they are milder..
11. In a food processor put ginger, garlic and apple and make purée..
12. Put all sauce ingredients into a big bowl except the half of the chilli powders and mix them well. Please start with half amount of chilli powder and add gradually the other half of chilli to suit your taste. If you add all at once it may be too hot for you. Add dashi here as well, if you made..
13. Then, add cabbage and mix them with hands with gloves. I use disposal plastic gloves. Then after mixing well, put them into a clean container. I use a Kilner fermentation bottle set which is great for Kimuchi..
14. Leave it in a relatively cool place in the house for three days and ready to eat!.
15. This is the fish sauce I used. I got it from Ocado..

Kimchi Jjigae or Kimchi Stew is actually very simple to make. This was one of my very first Korean recipe I cooked on my own. I still remember the very first time I made it all by myself - it was when I. Kimchi is also a main ingredient for many popular Korean dishes such as kimchi stew, kimchi soup, and kimchi fried rice. Enjoyed by many foreigners including myself.