Kim Chi

I have thought time and again about the disposition of this blog, and its constant neglect. I started out here with the idea that it would be a record of many types of exploits, but somehow I only began to show up here (if at all) when there was knitting or spinning or other fibery exploits to share, making it, effectively, a knitting/fiber blog. Lately my time for those exploits is slim. Sure there's the kid and work and all the normal stuff, but I am also spending most of whatever free time I have in the kitchen. We've started a share at a local CSA, as well as a share at a local meat CSA, and those exploits (along with pretty much everything else, since I'm trying to do the 365 project) seem most often to be documented over in my Flickr stream. I believe it's time to try to merge all of these online parts. For the folks who frown on the blending of blog types - you know, assuming anyone still reads the blog at all - I fear that I am about to dissappoint you. For everyone else? There's kim chi!!! Come on over.....

Kim Chi
Originally uploaded by obsessiondujour

Success!!!! There WERE two quarts worth, but somehow by the time it made it into the jars, a pint had gone...erm....missing. In ma belleh.

I will never buy kim chi again, and neither should you. This 80 kinds of easy to make, only took about an hour of total work time (and that includes stuffing it into these jars) and is oh so good. I used this recipe to get the brine and process, but made all manner of modifications to the ingredient list, as follows:

- 1 head regular green cabbage (instead of napa ) roughly chopped into 1/2 inch-ish bits - added yellow carrots, sorta-kinda julienned

- used an entire bunch of scallions, sliced

- instead of the asian hot peppers, I went with a blend of 1 Tbs hot, smoked paprika and 1 Tbs of regular paprika so that I could get that same hot/sweet combo but with a lower heat value. Consequently it has a definite kick, but is far milder than an average kim chi, which is exactly what I was after since I'm planning to feed it to my kid.

- added just a touch of soy sauce to the seasoning paste

The initial cabbage-only fermentation was overnight Saturday night, and then other veg & seasonings were mixed in Sunday and it sat until tonight - 6 days. Perfection.

There was a fair bit of brine leftover & I couldn't bear to throw it out, so I poured some over a jar of cucumber spears and a small jar of whole garlic cloves. Those are now buried in the back of the fridge to keep me from eating them too early. With any luck, I'll forget they're there for a couple of weeks and come back to find nirvana.

Comments

[Manise]

I've always wanted to try making my own Kim Chi. Thanks for the shove in that direction!

[Norma]

Giggling over here, because I read your line, "I will never buy kimchi again..." and thought, "Me too!" but it was for different reasons: I don't like it. Heh. Glad you had fun making it, though, if you like it. I guess I have a thing about fermented cabbage, because I don't like sauerkraut either, and there are very few things that I can actually say I don't like.

[Mel]

I thought you were supposed to bury it in an earthen jar in your yard for a year. I like the idea of instant-ish gratification.

And I've never maintained my blog as strictly fiber-oriented, so I don't care if you don't either.

[Rena]

As a foodcentric reader, I am delighted. :)