Asian Adventures - Kimchi

Kimchi (Adapted from Maangchi's Traditional and Quick Kimchi recipes)

For salting cabbage:

• 1-2 heads of napa cabbage, large ones
• 1/2 cup Kosher salt (I use Korea coarse sea salt, NO TABLE SALT)

For making porridge:

• 1 cups water
• 1 tablespoons sweet rice flour (glutinous rice flour)
• 1 tablespoons turbinado sugar (brown or white sugar)

Vegetables:

• 1 cup Korean or Daikon radish cut into medallions
• 1/2 of a Korean or Asian pear, quartered
• 4 green onions, rougjh chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped Asian chives (buchu), chopped (if you can't find, use the greens only from green onions)

Seasonings and spices:

• 1/2 cup garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 teaspoon ginger, chopped
• 1 small onion, quartered
• 1/4 cup fish sauce
• 1/8 cup fermented salted shrimp (saeujeot)
• 1 cups hot pepper flakes (gochugaru)

First, cut the ends off the cabbage heads thus released the first layer of leaves.  You just want to cut about an inch from the bottom.  I then remove the leaves till I have 3 or 4, line them up with each other and core the hard middle white part by cutting a V mark into it.  (pictures soon)  Then lay the leaves in a large bowl or tupperware.  Once you are done coring all the leaves.  Fill up your container with water and rinse the leaves well.  Drain.  Then sprinkle each leave, especially the bottom or any firm parts with salt.  Be liberal.  You will rinse all this off later.  Once each leaf is salted, lay it back down in the empty container.  Once done, leave it on the counter for 2 hours.  When the 2 hours are up, it should be wilted and limp.  There should be water in the container by now as well from the salted leaves.  Reach in and try to flip the leaves so the bottom is on top and the top is on the bottom.  Leave it for another hour or so.  You can tell it's done when you bend it all the way back without snapping.  Also if you want to kimchi any leftover radishes (they are huge) you can slice them into thin medallions and salt them as well.  

Meanwhile in the last hour of waiting for the cabbage, start assembling your paste.  In a small sauce pan, add the water, rice flour and sugar and stir well over medium heat.  Bring it to a boil as it thickens.  Stir and remove from heat.  Let cool.

Take out your food processor.  In Korea, they hand grate everything but that takes way too long.  I throw everything into the food processor!  When chopping, just rough chop everything and let the food processor do all the work.  Throw everything from the radishes to the red pepper flakes and pulse till smooth,  Let it sit till cabbage is ready.

Once everything is ready, rinse the cabbbage several times in small batches.  You want to make sure it's well rinsed.  I then chop it into almost bite sized pieces and throw it into a large container. (read more on containers below)  I fill it up quarter of the way and add a scoop of the kimchi paste, stir till all coated.  Then add the next layer of chopped cabbage leaves, add next scoop of paste and stir.  Continue till you used up all your cabbage.  Here I usually have paste leftover, I then freeze it.  It's doing the work once for two batches of kimchi.  It freezes really well.  When you are ready to make the next batch, place the frozen paste in the refrigerator the day before making.  

Here's the hard part.  I say hard as here in America, we are so used to refrigerating everything instantly.  But leave it on your counter for 24 hours.  They leave it for a few days but I can't do that. LOL  I do it for 24 hours and then place it in the fridge.  You can eat it the first day but I think it's best after a few days.  It's supposed to be good up to a month or even longer.  But again, I can't do that due to my American upbringing...so I eat it up within 2 weeks.  Our favorite way of using it is in Kimchi fried rice.  Recipe below.

On to the containers, it has to be airtight and glass or something heavy duty to keep it well insulated.  I seen these used for Kimchi, http://www.amazon.com/Premium-Kimchi-Sauerkraut-Fermentation-Container/dp/B00M40ANMO  

I get these instead: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00Q59FJHO?psc=1

I then place a bit of plastic wrap on the top layer to keep air from it.  

Kimchi Fried Rice

2 or 3 slices of Chinese bacon strips

4 cups of cooked cool rice.  (best if it's made the day before and thoroghly chilled)

4 cups of chopped kimchi

3 eggs

3 green onions, chopped

Soy sauce

In a large wok or pan, fry up bacon till rendered.  Leave enough bacon grease in pan to cover bottom.  Add kimchi and saute till just crispy.  About 10 minutes.  Add rice and stir through to combine.  Let it "fry" for a good few minutes till crispy and stir.  Add a tablespoon of soy and stir again.  Remove from heat.  In a small fry pan, add a bit of bacon grease if you have any leftover or a touch of oil.  Add eggs and a handful of green onions reserving the rest for garnish.  Scramble eggs quickly over medium heat till just set.  Add eggs to rice and stir to combine.  Serve with a sprinkling of green onions/crumbled bacon and a tiny drizzle of sesame seed oil on top.