My Opera1st kimchi experience
Sunday, July 24, 2011 6:12:28 PM
Well it's not often I post about cooking, but I've just had a minor epiphany!
By a rather roundabout route starting with being inspired by reading Robert Van Gulik's Judge Dee novels (detective novels set in ancient China), I got interested in kimchi, which seems to be something approaching Korea's national dish. It's spiced, fermented, pickled cabbage, and is consumed in vast quantities, along with a myriad variants involving other vegetables and ingredients.
So I thought I'd have a go at making some, as it's not available commercially around here. Here I hit the first problem: recipes for kimchi mostly assume you're already addicted to the stuff and want to make huge quantities. Also they tend to include ingredients that are just as unavailable around here as manufactured kimchi, with little guidance as to suitable substitutes. Not only that, but traditional kimchi seems to be a bit of a palaver to make.
Then I found Maangchi's web site. Not only does she show you how to make kimchi in the traditional way, but she covers alternative ingredients and also has this easy and quick recipe for what she calls Emergency Kimchi - ie you can make it quickly, use ordinary cabbage if you can't get what we in the UK call Chinese Leaves (Napa Cabbage to the Americans), it uses fewer specialised ingredients and she suggests alternatives in the comments:
Maangchi's Emergency Kimchi
From which you can tell it's OK to use Thai fish sauce (easy to find here) instead of the Korean variety, and the only problem ingredient left was the Korean hot chilli flakes. Luckily another recipe I found suggested using hot chilli paste, which again is easy to get here:
David Lebovitz's Kimchi Recipe
So, I set to this morning. I used 60ml Thai fish sauce, 60ml hot chilli paste, two small bulbs of garlic, two small carrots julienned, four spring onions, 1 tablespoon (15ml) sugar, and added about 5cm of fresh ginger to Maangchi's ingredients for the paste. (It's worth noting here that Maangchi also has suggestions for alternatives to fish sauce for vegetarians.)
I used a whole Chinese Leaf cabbage, salted as directed, combined the paste ingredients, rinsed the cabbage, mixed it into the paste and packed the results into recycled takeaway containers. It took me about an hour because I'm slow in the kitchen, so the cabbage had about 30 minutes salting while I made the paste, and the paste was probably a bit too liquid due to using the chilli paste rather than dry flakes, but I reckon it's OK for a first attempt.
Maangchi says it's fine to eat it fresh, so I decided I'd try the small amount that hadn't fitted into my main container for lunch with some brown rice cooked with a few vegetables. It had been marinating for about three hours by the time I tried it.
Wow! It's absolutely gorgeous! I can see how it's got a whole nation addicted - I tried a bit while the rice was cooking and really wanted to scoff the lot. I'm currently exercising superhuman self-control so that the main container stays untouched for at least the next 24 hours so I can see what it's like once it's started fermenting.
One thing is for sure: I'll be making it again. Even if I don't like it once it's fermented, it's so delicious fresh that I want more!
By a rather roundabout route starting with being inspired by reading Robert Van Gulik's Judge Dee novels (detective novels set in ancient China), I got interested in kimchi, which seems to be something approaching Korea's national dish. It's spiced, fermented, pickled cabbage, and is consumed in vast quantities, along with a myriad variants involving other vegetables and ingredients.
So I thought I'd have a go at making some, as it's not available commercially around here. Here I hit the first problem: recipes for kimchi mostly assume you're already addicted to the stuff and want to make huge quantities. Also they tend to include ingredients that are just as unavailable around here as manufactured kimchi, with little guidance as to suitable substitutes. Not only that, but traditional kimchi seems to be a bit of a palaver to make.
Then I found Maangchi's web site. Not only does she show you how to make kimchi in the traditional way, but she covers alternative ingredients and also has this easy and quick recipe for what she calls Emergency Kimchi - ie you can make it quickly, use ordinary cabbage if you can't get what we in the UK call Chinese Leaves (Napa Cabbage to the Americans), it uses fewer specialised ingredients and she suggests alternatives in the comments:
Maangchi's Emergency Kimchi
From which you can tell it's OK to use Thai fish sauce (easy to find here) instead of the Korean variety, and the only problem ingredient left was the Korean hot chilli flakes. Luckily another recipe I found suggested using hot chilli paste, which again is easy to get here:
David Lebovitz's Kimchi Recipe
So, I set to this morning. I used 60ml Thai fish sauce, 60ml hot chilli paste, two small bulbs of garlic, two small carrots julienned, four spring onions, 1 tablespoon (15ml) sugar, and added about 5cm of fresh ginger to Maangchi's ingredients for the paste. (It's worth noting here that Maangchi also has suggestions for alternatives to fish sauce for vegetarians.)
I used a whole Chinese Leaf cabbage, salted as directed, combined the paste ingredients, rinsed the cabbage, mixed it into the paste and packed the results into recycled takeaway containers. It took me about an hour because I'm slow in the kitchen, so the cabbage had about 30 minutes salting while I made the paste, and the paste was probably a bit too liquid due to using the chilli paste rather than dry flakes, but I reckon it's OK for a first attempt.
Maangchi says it's fine to eat it fresh, so I decided I'd try the small amount that hadn't fitted into my main container for lunch with some brown rice cooked with a few vegetables. It had been marinating for about three hours by the time I tried it.
Wow! It's absolutely gorgeous! I can see how it's got a whole nation addicted - I tried a bit while the rice was cooking and really wanted to scoff the lot. I'm currently exercising superhuman self-control so that the main container stays untouched for at least the next 24 hours so I can see what it's like once it's started fermenting.
One thing is for sure: I'll be making it again. Even if I don't like it once it's fermented, it's so delicious fresh that I want more!
