Kimchi

Koreans very proud of their kimchi, they literally eat it with every meal, and every family has their own recipe.  They often make it with fish sauce, but this recipe is a vegetarian version.  This recipe has been adapted from the Modern Preserver a great book by Kylee Newton.

It can take a little trial and error to get your kimchi right, but persevere as its worth it, and once you know how to make it, its is really easy.  

Ingredients:
  • 1 litre filtered water (Use filtered water as the chlorine in tap water is not great for the fermentation process.)    
  • 4 tbsp sea salt
  • 1 cabbage
  • 3 carrots
  • 1 daikon raddish
  • 1 small onion
  • 2 garlic cloves
  • piece fresh ginger
  • piece fresh turmeric
  • Gochugaru powder (Korean chilli) and/or cayenne pepper to taste

Method
  1. Mix together water and salt to dissolve
  2. Roughly shred a head of cabbage, finely chop the peeled carrots and daikon raddish.
  3.  Put them in a wide dish with the salt water.  Place another bowl on top with something heavy on it to keep the vegetables submerged under water.  Put this in a larger bowl as some of the water will spill over the edge during the night.  Soak them overnight.
  4. Peel and dice onion, garlic, ginger, turmeric.  
  5. Put in a food processor and blend into a paste.
  6. Stir the chilli powder into the paste.
  7. Drain the vegetables, but keep the salt water.
  8. Rub and mix the paste into the vegetables, evenly coating them.  Gently squeezing the vegetables to bruise their cell walls and helping to release juices.
  9. Pack all this into a wide-mouth jar and press down to release more juice, make sure the vegetables are submerged in their own liquid.  If they aren't fill the remainder of the jar with the left over salt water.  
  10. Scrape the sides of the jar clean and place a weight onto the vegetables to keep them submerged in the water.  A smaller jar filled with water will work.
  11. You need to ensure that your vegetables are submerged under water at all time, this ensures that your vegetables are not spoiled by oxygen.
  12. Cover the jar with a muslin cloth so it can breathe and leave on a counter top.
  13. After a few days you will see bubbles raising either in the jar or as you push your ferment down, this is it fermenting.
  14. The length of time it takes will depend on the environment and your tastes.  As the kimchi ferments different bacteria will colonise, so at each stage of fermentation you will get a different microbial make up.  The kimchi will be crunchy but the longer you leave it to ferment the softer the leaves will become.  Its up to you how you prefer it.  To slow down the fermenting process put it in the fridge.
  15. You can also pack it into sterilised jars leaving a 5mm gap at the top and seal.  This will keep for 6-8 months unopened in a cool dark cupboard.  Once opened, keep in fridge.
  16. Eat and enjoy.