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Step 1Assemble tools and ingredients
At its most basic, kimchee is chinese cabbage (can use napa, pac choi, or any chinese cabbage) fermented with garlic, pepper, salt, and ginger. Other ingredients such as daikon (or other radish), carrot, scallion / green onion or other onion, fish (in the form of dried crumbled fish, fish broth or fish sauce, or Hondashi fish broth powder), and even seaweed, are commonly used depending on preference.
Here I show Kosher Salt, scallions, daikon, fresh ginger, hondashi powder, dried pepper flakes specifically for making kimchee, fresh garlic, carrot, and a very large head of pac choi /bok choy.
You will also need a sharp knife, a large nonreactive mixing bowl, a smaller nonreactive mixing bowl, and glass or stoneware jars or crocks to hold the finished product.
You will need anywhere from several hours, to overnight, to soak the fresh chopped veggies in salt solution, and then anywhere from 5 days to 2 weeks to ferment your kimchee depending on how warm the room is, how much salt to vegetables, and whether you had leftover kimchee "juice" to jump-start the fermentation with.
For those who want measured quantities either to follow, or to get a ballpark idea of what the proportions are:
For roughly two quart jars:
2 lbs chinese cabbage
1 whole daikon radish or several red radishes
1 to 2 carrots
onions and/or leeks, bunch of scallions, or shallots... as many or few as you like.
6-8 cloves of garlic, or as many as you like... your love of garlic is the only limiting factor
5-6 tablespoons of grated ginger, or grate up a 4 inch piece... again, more to taste if you like it especially
Seaweed if you like, but I didn't use it in this recipe
3 tsp. hondashi japanese fish broth powder ( or a handful of dried bonito, crumbled)
Brine will be 4 cups of water to 4 tablespoons of salt. If this isn't enough to cover the fresh veggies, then double the brine recipe.
Here I show Kosher Salt, scallions, daikon, fresh ginger, hondashi powder, dried pepper flakes specifically for making kimchee, fresh garlic, carrot, and a very large head of pac choi /bok choy.
You will also need a sharp knife, a large nonreactive mixing bowl, a smaller nonreactive mixing bowl, and glass or stoneware jars or crocks to hold the finished product.
You will need anywhere from several hours, to overnight, to soak the fresh chopped veggies in salt solution, and then anywhere from 5 days to 2 weeks to ferment your kimchee depending on how warm the room is, how much salt to vegetables, and whether you had leftover kimchee "juice" to jump-start the fermentation with.
For those who want measured quantities either to follow, or to get a ballpark idea of what the proportions are:
For roughly two quart jars:
2 lbs chinese cabbage
1 whole daikon radish or several red radishes
1 to 2 carrots
onions and/or leeks, bunch of scallions, or shallots... as many or few as you like.
6-8 cloves of garlic, or as many as you like... your love of garlic is the only limiting factor
5-6 tablespoons of grated ginger, or grate up a 4 inch piece... again, more to taste if you like it especially
Seaweed if you like, but I didn't use it in this recipe
3 tsp. hondashi japanese fish broth powder ( or a handful of dried bonito, crumbled)
Brine will be 4 cups of water to 4 tablespoons of salt. If this isn't enough to cover the fresh veggies, then double the brine recipe.
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I came across Erik Armstrong's recipe for Ultimate kimchee...and wow, I made it-- my first time trying anything cultured, and it was sublime!
I didn't follow the recipe exactly, but did follow the spirit of it. Not sure if it was partially the full moon few days my kimchee spent outside, (took about 14 days total), the beautiful summer weather, or the 'blessing' it got from a friend, (seriously) but whatever it was, it was perfect. I haven't been able to get it exactly the same since, but if memory serves, it included cabbage, both colours, and napa, (not chinese), daikon, kholrabi, celeriac, parsley root, (I wanted burdock but couldn't find it), green onions, (mmm!) ginger, carrot (both in matchsticks) no garlic (not sure why, because I love it) red pepper flakes, limes, lemons, apple, pear, and some underripe peach. the fruit and citrus comb. was the thing that made it amazing, when it all medled together. Also, I used "Celtic salt" (before its origins / purity came into question)
Morton's kosher -- is it real salt, or is itrefined?
Your pictures are wonderful. and your kimchee is inspiring! I will have to use the bok choy next time. I suppose mine was not kimchee per se, but rather cultured veg. I also make kombucha, and have had one batch that sat out all winter , that froze (by mistake) and then thawed, that tasted like a fine chamapagne, almost.
wow!
You are right to realize that it is the 'spirit of it' that matters... the recipe is used only to demonstrate the method and give people a starting point, but kimchi, like many things, is a journey, not a destination. Exact measurements are not necessary, and you are free to experiment and add things.
i don't sell and am not connected in any way with the Wild Fermentation book by Katz, (except for owning a copy) but if you don't already have it, it has everything you could imagine, including kombucha (which you already do), how to make your own miso, and exotic fermentation traditions from around the world, for your discovery.
Morton's kosher salt is refined, but I don't see how that makes it any more or less a salt. Salt that is unrefined is salt plus whatever else was in it, whether you call the other substances 'impurities' or 'minerals' is subjective. The function of the salt to alter fermentation such that the desired microbes do the work instead of a larger population of undesired ones, depends on the salt itself, and the presence or absence of other minerals or impurities is incidental.
So, use whatever salt you want, and if one tastes better or complies with your personal philosophies better than another, they all work. I used kosher salt because it is not iodized, and I prefer the taste and iodine imparted by seaweed over the taste of iodized salt. But again, any salt will do, and which is best is a matter of personal taste and preference.
Thanks for your interesting and inspiring post!