Kimchi is a traditional fermented korean side dish. The latest batch was pretty good. I’m still experimenting with, but I would consider the latest version a good base.

This one was a hard one. As I started with no clue of kimchi, and a big portion of optimism that one can replace most of those ingredients anyways, it required a few versions to get something decent.

Ingredients

Base:

• 600g napa cabbage
• water
• 150g salt

Others:

• 130g carrots
• 260g radish
• 60g spring onion
• 50g red pepper flakes
• [ optional: 1/2 ground non seeded dried habanero ]

Sauce:

• 200g apple
• 45g peeled ginger
• one of [35g soj sauce | 40g fish sauce | 40g oyster sauce]
• [ optional: 15g garlic (I forgot it last time and it was still very good) ]

Instructions

Quarter the napa cabbage and remove its stem. Cut the leaves in bite size pieces. I usually remove th inner half and cut it. The outer part I cut once length wise and then cut it again into pieces. Place the cabbage in a big vessel, add the salt and mix it. Try to massage the salt into the leaves, crushing them in the process a bit. Add water to cover the cabbage and let it rest for 6 hours. Do not skip this step. It is necessary. I tried it without it, and the result was awful.

After 6 hours drain the water from the cabbage. Try one piece of it. If it is too salty for your taste rinse the cabbage with water until it hits your preference. Cut the carrots and radish into stripes. I usually go with very fine carrot stripes and thicker radish ones. Cut the spring onion into thin slices. I tried to cut them into bigger pieces, but they were too intense after fermentation, so I recommend going for smaller ones. Mix the vegetables with the cabbage.

For the sauce blend all ingredients together. Depending on your taste you can use either soj, fish or oyster sauce. Fish sauce is traditionally the way to go. Add the blended sauce to the vegetables, add the red pepper flakes and mix everything together.

Fill the kimchi into fermentation jars. Press the content down to remove all air bubbles. Let them rest for 3-7 days. Each day press down on the kimchi to remove any gas from between the vegetables.

Note: For me a bit more than 2 days (ca 20 degrees temperature) was perfect. Afterward it got too sour. Best just taste it each day and decide yourself how sour you want it to be.

As with all fermentation do not fully close your jars, or they might explode.

Next Time…

• mix some corn starch with water 1:1, bring it to a boil, let it cool of and add it together with the pepper flakes

Journal

v5

This time I tried to make some changes to the overall recipel. I reduced the salt in the first step to 50g and reduced the time I washed the cabbage afterward. I reduced the apple content to 100g. Becayse I was lazy I cut everything at once and let it soak with the cabbage. Might not be the best idea as you will loose some flavor of the ingredients to the water.

I did use only 100g apples for the sauce but tried to add 50g starch and 50g water which I shortly boiled as suggested last version to start the fermentation. In addition I just blent everything together for the sauce directly.

I do feel like there was a bit too much sauce for the vegetables. Next time maybe reduce the sauce by 30% or so.

Ingredients:

• 1200g cabbage
• 100g salt
• 300g carrots
• 400g radish
• 100g spring onion, but way finer cut
• 80g fish sauce
• 75g ginger
• 75g red pepper flakes (should be 100 but I ran out..)
• 30g garlic
• 100g apple
• 50g starch + water shortly cooked and cooled down (used 20g starch and 30g flour as I ran out..)

v4

notes for v4 tests (after v3):

• try to let the cabbage soak in salt water for 6-12h up front. seemed to help the most, though not sure why
• mix some corn starch with water 1:1, bring it to a boil, let it cool of and add it together with the pepper flakes.
• cut the green onion in thin slices. The thick ones are too intense, even with a long fermentation period done. helped a lot with flavor
• shorten the fermentation period. 4-5 days was too long and the kimchi was too sour done. always taste test during fermentation

This time I got huge napa cabbage and radish, so I prepared three jars and tested three different sauces (fish sauce, oyster sauce and soj sauce).

The base recipe for one jar was:

• 600g napa cabbage

• 130g carrots

• 260g radish

• 60g green onion

• 200g apple

• 45g peeled ginger

• 50g red pepper flakes

• one of [35g soj sauce | 40g fish sauce | 40g oyster sauce]

Note: apparently I forgot the garlic, though it still taste great.

Taste testing during fermentation revealed that the oyster sauce was noticeable sweeter which really helped the flavor. I assume that the corn starch slurry would have a similar effect with other sauces as well. Test this in the next version.

In regard to the three sauces: Personally I liked the fish sauce the most, and the soj sauce the least. Though other people had opposite opinions.

v3

V2 was ok but nothing that I would enjoy eating a lot of. For this version I used austrian cabbage instead of napa cabbage as it was not available to me. However, I finally got my hands on red pepper flakes to use in the recipe.

• 630g austrian cabbage

• 50g salt

• 130g carrots

• 100g radish

• 130g spring onions

• 1 apple

• 15g garlic

• 60g ginger

• 10g fish sauce

• 50g red pepper flakes

v2

V1 was a pretty big fail, and I threw it out after 2 days fermentation. Using salad instead of cabbage was a quite stupid idea. For this one I used napa cabbage, reduced the fish sauce and used paprika powder instead of pepper flakes.

• 800 napa cabbage

• 130g carrots

• 130g radish

• 150g spring onions

• 200g apple (should be piers)

• 15g garlic

• 60g ginger

• 30g fish sauce

• 20g paprika powder (should be korean pepper flakes)

• 3g crushed chilies

This time the taste was way better, though still nothing I would make again.

v1

• 660g frisee salad (should be napa cabbage)

• salt

• 130g carrots

• 130g radish

• 170g spring onions

• 200g apple (should be piers)

• 15g garlic

• 60g ginger

• 50g fish sauce

• 11g red pepper (crushed) (should be korean pepper flakes)

• 5g crushed chilies

  

Notes: Usually you would use korean red pepper flakes for kimchi. As I did not have any I tried to use red pepper and chilies instead. As I do not have access to korean piers (and I did not have regular pears at hand) I used an apple. Last but not least I did not have napa cabbage, so I used frisee salad, which might be the biggest issue with this test run.