K Food: Korean Home Cooking and Street Food
By Da-Hae West and Gareth West
30 mins plus brining & fermenting
Not Too Tricky
makes 800
About the recipe
When I was little, I used to watch my mum make kimchi. Stood over a sink, elbow-deep in the kimchi ‘glue’, she would rub the mixture into the cabbage before tearing off a bit of one of the spicy leaves to feed me. One bit was never enough, and I’d always sneak some more until she’d give in and we’d enjoy a pile of the newly made kimchi with a steaming bowl of rice. Kimchi at this stage is very different to what you might be familiar with – it’s fresh and crisp, like a spicy salad, and is deliciously addictive in its own right. If you have the patience to give it a few weeks though, the kimchi will develop its characteristic tangy flavour through fermentation, and it is at this stage that it makes a great base for cooking with.
Recipe From
Ingredients
1 Chinese cabbage (about 800g)
50g salt
KIMCHI "GLUE"
150ml Myeulchi Gookmul (anchovy stock)
1 tablespoon sweet rice flour
4 tablespoons gochugaru (Korean red chilli powder)
2 spring onions
1 carrot
4 cloves of garlic
1cm piece of ginger
1 apple
1½ tablespoons fish sauce
2 teaspoons saeujeot (salted fermented shrimp)
Top Tip
One way I like to eat really fermented kimchi is to wash the leaves of their seasoning paste, then use these washed leaves to wrap barbecued meats, or simply lay the washed kimchi in one hand, put a small spoonful of rice in the middle with a dollop of gochujang and wrap it up to make a tasty little kimchi parcel.
Method
- Remove the outer leaves and the stem of the cabbage.
- Using a sharp knife, make a cut about 10cm up the cabbage to the base and use it to gently pull the cabbage in half (this helps to keep the leaves whole without shredding them).
- Repeat the process with each half so that the cabbage is quartered.
- Fill a large bowl with cold water and submerge each of the cabbage quarters fully, then remove from the, water and shake them to get rid of any excess water.
- Take a small handful of salt and rub it up and down each leaf of 1 cabbage quarter, ensuring the thicker parts closer to the stalk are particularly well covered.
- Repeat with the remaining quarters, then transfer to a large, clean, clip lock plastic container and leave to brine for 3 hours, turning the cabbage quarters every 30 minutes to make sure the salt is distributed evenly over the cabbage.
- Meanwhile, make the kimchi "glue". Bring the stock to a boil in a small saucepan. Add the sweet rice flour, reduce the heat to a simmer and whisk together until there are no lumps and the mixture is thick enough to easily coat the back of a spoon. Set aside to cool to room temperature.
- Trim and finely slice the spring onions, then peel and finely chop the carrot, garlic and ginger. Core and finely chop the apple (leaving the skin on), then add all this, along with the fish sauce and saeujot, to the thickened "glue" and mix together thoroughly (this is easiest done by hand, wearing gloves).
- After brining, thoroughly wash the cabbages under cold running water to remove any excess salt or sediment that that be trapped between the leaves, then shake dry.
- Take a small handful of the "glue" and rub it up and down each leaf of 1 cabbage quarter to coat, making sure that the thicker parts nearer the base are particularly well covered as before. Repeat with the remaining cabbage quarters.
- Fold over the top third of each cabbage quarter into its centre, then fold over the outer leaves to form a parcel. Pack the kimchi parcels tightly into the large container.
- Spoon any leftover "glue" into the container to fill any gaps – this will help form a barrier against the air and prevent mould. Be sure to leave some space at the top of the container though, as the kimchi will need some room to ferment and expand (without it, you could end up with a kimchi explosion).
- Leave at room temperature for 3 to 4 days to ferment, then transfer to the refrigerator until needed.
- The kimchi will continue to ferment but at a much slower rate, so every day it’ll taste a little sharper and a little tangier. Enjoy with everything.
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