The Ferment Farm
Kimchi
Table of Contents
Kimchi Recipe
(Korean spicy fishy sour kraut - a magic marriage of my favorite strong flavours - Garlic, Ginger, Pepper, & Onion)
There are as many variations as there are Korean families. This is the closest recipe to “standard” as possible.
Ingredients (per cabbage):
- 1 Sui Choi/Nappa cabbage
- 2-4 green/white onion
- 1/4 Daikon radish (long white)
- 1 garlic head
- 1 ginger hand
- Handful uniodized salt
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- 1/2 Cup dried chilli pepper
- 100 ml fish sauce
- 1/3 tsp salted shrimp
- 100 ml Kombu broth
Stage one:
Prepare Sui Choi cabbage and Kombu broth day before.
Sui Choi Cabbage: Quarter cabbage from centre up and wash removing all darker green leaves. Soak one day in brine made of a handful of salt and enough water to completely submerge the cabbage quarters. Approximately 2-3% brine solution is adequate (1Tbsp/L). Placing a plate and weight can be used.
Kombu broth: place one piece of dry seaweed into a container of hot boiling water. Approximately 100 ml per cabbage.
Stage two: SAUCE
Chop/semi puree even amounts of garlic, onion, and ginger. A food processor will work nicely. Hand cut ginger cross grain to reduce long fibres. Add chilli flakes, sugar, fish sauce, kombu broth, shrimp paste (if vegan, simply use no fish sauce and shrimp fry)
There are two ways of mixing the sauce with the cabbage, and dicon radish. The sauce can be applied between leafs of the whole quarter cabbage then rolled up to ferment. I prefer to pre chop cabbage and radish into desired sizes, and layered with sauce into jars or crock squishing as much air out as possible. Be aware that in the lacto fermentation process initially will involve much bubbling gasses. This will start within a few days and achieve a climax usually within a week to ten days. There are so many variables that change this timeframe. Temperature is a big one. Any tightly sealed jar will turn into a grenade. The object is to have the vegies submerged in sauce with enough room in jar / crock for expansion. Also to have majority of gas production phase finished before filling sealed jars and refrigerating. Follow standard procedures of fermentation keeping all the veggie matter submerged in its own brine.
Ingredient Pictures
Kombu Seaweed for broth
Sui Choi: Quartered then wilted in salt brine overnight
Fish sauce: Squid brand- one of many available.
Salted shrimp - many available
Hot Pepper Powder- only seems to come from China or Korea
Sauce Making: Garlic, Ginger, and onion chopping
NOTE: use small teaspoon to scrape skin off ginger
Kombu seaweed taken from broth
Process veggies into sauce
Mix all sauce ingredients
Wilted Sui Choi ready for cutting
Chopping up (dont forget Diakon Radish!)
Sauce Spreading and pressing down into jars
Much thanks to Yu! The True Kimchi Master!!
