Red Cabbage Kimchi

 

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 medium head red cabbage 
  • 1/4 cup 

    iodine-free sea salt

  • Water, preferably distilled, filtered or pre-boiled
  • 1 tablespoon 

    grated garlic (5 to 6 cloves)

  • 1 teaspoon 

    grated peeled fresh ginger

  • 1 teaspoon 

    granulated sugar

  • 2 tablepoons tamari
  • 1 to 5 tablespoons 

    Korean red pepper flakes (gochugaru)

  • 8 ounces 

    Korean radish or daikon radish, peeled and cut into matchsticks or just radishes

  • 4 medium onions, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
Slice the cabbage 

Place the cabbage in a large bowl and sprinkle with the salt. Using your hands, massage the salt into the cabbage until it starts to soften a bit. Add enough water to cover the cabbage. Put a plate on top of the cabbage and weigh it down with something heavy, like a jar or can of beans. Let stand for 1 to 2 hours.

Rinse the cabbage under cold water 3 times. Set aside to drain in a colander for 15 to 20 minutes. Meanwhile, make the spice paste.

Add the garlic, ginger, sugar, and fish sauce, shrimp paste, or water and stir into a smooth paste. Stir in the gochugaru, using 1 tablespoon for mild and up to 5 tablespoons for spicy (I like about 3 1/2 tablespoons); set aside until the cabbage is ready.

Gently squeeze any remaining water from the cabbage and add it to the spice paste. Add the radish and scallions.

Using your hands, gently work the paste into the vegetables until they are thoroughly coated.

Pack the kimchi into a jar. Press down on the kimchi until the brine (the liquid that comes out) rises to cover the vegetables, leaving at least 1 inch of space at the top. Seal the jar or use a weight to hold everything under the brine

Place a bowl or plate under the jar to help catch any overflow. Let the jar stand at cool room temperature, out of direct sunlight, for 1 to 5 days. You may see bubbles inside the jar and brine may seep out of the lid.

Check the kimchi once a day, opening the jar and pressing down on the vegetables with a clean finger or spoon to keep them submerged under the brine. (This also releases gases produced during fermentation.) Taste a little at this point, too! When the kimchi tastes ripe enough for your liking, transfer the jar to the refrigerator. You may eat it right away, but it's best after another week or two.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

5. Just Go Ahead and Die Quietly

Image
< Previous  -  Next > We have many preconceptions about cancer, these are fed by a deluge of slightly inaccurate information from books, magazines, television and most of all these days, bloody wellness influencers.  I am starting to come to to the conclusion that there is a Darwinian imperative lurking in the pernicious trend of believing every fucking thing that is on the internet rather than a proper scientific double blind trial conducted by people who have been studying their field for years. The conclusion is this, we should encourage this trend as much as we can as it will thin out the herd for the rest of us. Apologies, cynical grumpy old man came to the fore a bit there, lets get back to cancerous inaccuracies, watch any series on the TV and a protaganist will get cancer, they will be rushed to a hospital that is the only one willing to try a new procedure, the cancer will be removed and then we will see them celebrating with their tearful relatives.  ...
Read more

14: Well, you can live on it, but it tastes like shit

Image
< Previous   | Next > It’s the end of week 5 of chemo and radiotherapy. Not much has happened of note. My life has distilled down to 4 distinct things, work, radiotherapy, a soupcon of television and sleep. This does not make for very scintillating blog writing.   To pick up from where we left off, Helen and I had staggered to the car overburdened with Fortisips and returned to Butcombe like medically challenged Father Christmases, laden with gifts that no bugger in his right mind would want. We had many people round for a meal on the Saturday night and I cooked a tofu and mushroom curry with coconut cream. I supplemented this with Mediterranean Rice and Lentils as the amount of people coming kept exponentially increasing until I lost count. There was a certain amount of uncertainty on my part as I couldn’t taste the curry and had to rely on other people to taste it and tell me whether it was OK.  I on the other hand was reprising Paul Hogan in Crocodile Dundee...
Read more

13: Abandoning My Principles

Image
< Previous | Next > It’s a Thursday and I am three weeks into the cancer treatment.  The first week had been pretty uneventful, I felt a little nausea and there were some changes happening in my mouth and throat that I had not ordered but nothing that startling. What I definitely have not ordered is what is happening to my sense of taste, to be frank, it appears to have fucked off never to be seen again.  What is the most disconcerting is the food that I find the worst is my own.  By this I mean that I am the principal cook in the Acheson-Crow household and do nearly all the cooking.  At age fourteen my daughter decided to become vegetarian and from then on very nearly all the food I've cooked has been vegetarian. I couldn’t be bothered with doing two lots of meals for the sake of a bit of meat. To be fair, during the 90’s I was almost completely ‘brassic’ and at one point was existing on exactly £10 a week for food, which, even thirty years ago, was fairly dr...
Read more