Kimchi (improved version)

I just made a batch of kimchi jjigae (a fave winter soup) with some old kimchi and it was amazing. I made it for the first time using pork belly instead of bacon, and omg! the pork belly gives it a more silky texture. It was incredible and I still have 1 more jar of last year's kimchi to make more. What glee!

There was some really beautiful napa cabbage at the co-op a couple of weeks ago, so it seemed wise to replenish the dwindling kimchi supply. I've made kimchi 5-6 times, and this time I changed up my method. I was feeling like the recipe I was using was a little fussy and inconsistent on the salting. My biggest challenge with kimchi making is to get the appropriate salty-ness in the napa so that the fermentation works right, and to get a good taste in the end. People have all different kinds of ways to salt: soak napa in salty water, do a salt rub, just add salt to the brine, etc.

My Charming Companion has made kimchi for many, many years and I think his salting method is more effective than my previous attempts and is what I include here. No matter what technique you use, the most important thing is to taste the cabbage and check how salty it is when you put it in the jar. It should taste salty! Taste several pieces of the napa because sometimes there is a range of saltiness and you want to get them pretty similar.

The recipe below uses My Charming Companions salting methods, with my own take on the ingredients. There is no need to measure things out precisely, but I am giving some estimates here. If you have more green onions, put them in, if you want more ginger, do that. I also have a hard time with raw garlic, so I use pureed onion where most people would use garlic.

2 large heads napa cabbage (4-6 lbs)
about 1/2 c sea salt (w/out iodine)
small onion, peeled
2 T ginger, peeled
1/4 c fish sauce (red boat brand is good!)
1/2 c korean red pepper flakes (gochugaru)*
1-2 T American red pepper flakes
1 daikon radish, cut into matchsticks
1 bunch scallions, coarsely chopped
2 grated carrots (opt)

*Korean red pepper flakes are a bit sweet and not as spicy as American pepper flakes. I've used either in kimchi, but I love the sweetness of gochugaru. It is sold at United Noodles in a large package with a picture of kimchi on the front (the package will last many kimchi batches!) You can buy either flakes or powder. I accidentally bought powder a couple of years ago, and it is working fine. If you use American pepper flakes instead, use less because it will be spicier.

1. Quarter the napa and cut out the really tough core pieces (it's very small at the base of the quarters). Chop the napa into 2" size pieces. You are going to let these pieces of napa sit for a several hours - so either get a really big bowl, or clean out your sink and do it in there.

2. Rinse/moisten the napa and drain any excess water. Add the salt and stir well so that all of the cabbage is coated. Let sit 3-4 hours or overnight.
3. Rinse salt from napa once or twice and taste the cabbage. Rinse salt until it is the appropriate saltiness. It should be a little less salty than sauerkraut (or a salty condiment), but more salty than you would want regular food to taste.
4. Add daikon, scallions, and carrots to the napa and mix.

5. For the pepper paste: Process onion and ginger in a food processor until minced. Remove them from processor and but in a small mixing bowl. Add fish sauce and pepper flakes and stir to make a paste.
6. I put on gloves for this next step: combine the paste with the veggies and really work it in so that all veggies are covered in the red mix - things should be a bit wet at this point. Again, taste a few bites of the napa to double check the salt, and also test the spiciness. Add more pepper if you like. If the mixture is not so salty, add a little bit to the whole thing, stir, and taste again. This will ensure really good kimchi and is worth the tasting!

7. Pack the kimchi into quart jars. The napa will have shrunk quite a bit, and you can generally fit this amount into 3 jars. Press kimchi down so that liquid covers the veggies; leave about an inch at the top for excess liquid that will come up as the fermentation occurs. Put lids on the jars and let sit out 2-6 days, depending on room temp and your fave fermentation level. I sat mine out 6 days, and made sure to set them on a plate to catch any overflow liquid. Refrigerate until ready to eat. It will last years but will continue fermenting very slowly.

Kimchi

I first had kimchi in 9th or 10th grade - I would go to my friend's house after school and we would pile the kimchi on top of rice and eat it with chopsticks (me very haphazardly). I remember having to keep my mouth wide open after bites because the combo of the hot rice with the spicy kimchi made my mouth feel like it was on fire. I liked it so much that I got my mom to drive me to the korean grocery store across town so that I could buy my own, which my family then made me eat outside on the porch because they didn't like the fermented garlic smell. (This was not a familiar scent in my German/Irish/Czech/Norwegian home!)

I didn't eat kimchi again for years and years, and only in the last 5 or so did I realize I could make it myself. I've tried it a few times now, and am still working to perfect my own favorite version. There are so many recipes and ways to salt the cabbage! This time I modified a recipe from 2 places: a blog called Eating and Living - A Korean American mom's home cooking, and Anna's Korean Kitchen Diary - both had easy directions and nice photos. The kimchi turned out really good. It was also a bit saltier than I like, so I will use Anna's salting amount and method next time. Hers is what I include in the recipe below. My recipe changes include: no garlic, a food processed onion instead of rice powder, and anchovy paste instead of salted shrimp/raw shrimp/fish sauce. I have made kimchi without any fish sauce/anchovy/shrimp before and it has still turned out good, so if that sounds better for you, just take that out.

Kimchi (makes 2 quarts)
1 large napa cabbage (6 pounds)
1/2 c. course sea salt
5 c. water

1 daikon radish, cut into matchsticks
3 scallions, cut in 1-2" pieces
1/2-1 cup (korean) chili red pepper flakes*
2 T anchovy paste
1/2 onion minced in food processor
2 t. grated ginger
1/2 c. water
 *Korean red pepper flakes are recommended, but mine turned out fine with the kind sold at the co-op. I used 1/2 c. and it turned out mildly spicy. Like a 3 on a 1-5 heat scale.

See Anna's recipe for preparing the cabbage - the napa does need to sit for about 2 1/2 hours, so allow that much time. While the cabbage is pickling, you can prepare the "sauce". Cut the daikon and scallions and put in a bowl. Mix the remaining ingredients together (you could start with the onion in the food processor, and once it is well minced, add the other ingredients - or just do that in a bowl by hand).

Once your cabbage is ready, it needs to be well rinsed (several times) to get the salt off. You will then stuff the radish mixture into the cabbage leaves (as in Anna's blog post). Notice that she keeps the entire quarter of the napa together so that the radish mixture can be stuffed inside. I found that it is really hard to pull out the cabbage (once it is all finished) and eat it this way, so at this point I would chop up the stuffed napa and fill up my quart jars. However you want to do it - just get all the stuff in the jars!

Once the jars are stuffed, make sure to press the filling down so that it is submerged in water. They will continue to "juice" water as they sit out, so you can leave extra space or be prepared for them to overflow. I just covered mine with the canning lid (without the screw on part) so that they were covered, but could still breathe.  Let them sit out 24 hours or more - taste to see when it is fermented to your liking, then refrigerate the jars. They will keep a super long time - more than a year.