Adventures in Making Kimchi

I love kimchi!! It's a gotta have it daily if I can. No, it's not a Japanese thing but a Korean recipe. I was blessed with an appreciative multinational palate growing up. So my Asian repertoire includes Japanese, Thai, Chinese, and Korean recipes to name a few. I eat kimchi daily for the probiotics and immuno-boosting qualities it has. Not to mention the taste. Whether it's mild or spicy hot, it does the body good.

It isn't difficult to make. In fact there are several Youtube channel posting on how to make it. My favorite is Maangchi.

 

She makes it easy enough to make except I don't add raw squid to mine. I prefer my squid prepared in other dishes.

Well, it would be easy enough to do with two functioning hands which I no longer have. Back on the homestead, I planted the onions, Napa cabbages, carrots, and daikon radishes in the fall garden. But here in the city all the ingredients are readily available at the Asian Market. Since my last pint and a half jar broke on the move here (EEK!), I need to make some now instead of waiting to plant and grow my own. Read, going through kimchi withdrawals after a month here. My son-in-law was nice enough to purchase some from another Asian food store for me to tide me over while mine ferments.

Chopping vegetables with my functioning non-dominant hand yielding the knife is awkward at best. To cut into the large Napa cabbages was challenging. The Tearing to split the cabbages almost undid me. I figured out how to hold the cabbage against my apron clad bosom helped while my finger pulled the cabbage wedges apart. It would have been easier if I wasn't so well endowed.😎 Once I got the cabbages into quarters it was an easy rolling cut with my one handled mezzaluna made short work of cutting them into bite sized pieces to be salted in the sink. I had scrubbed and sanitized my sink prior to doing this. I added approximately 1/3 a cup of sea salt to each of the three Napa cabbages (equaled 10 lbs and 1 cup total salt used). I gave the cabbage pieces a good toss to distribute the salt and loosened the drain plug so the water would not accumulate under the pieces. I wasn't worried that the cabbage was heaped over the top edge of the sink. I knew it would shrink with time.

I set the timer for thirty minutes. I turned my attention to my other vegetables. The fresh ginger, daikon, and carrots needed to n peeled. I had bought minced garlic. I pulled out my vegetable peeler and set to work. I pushed the large end of each vegetable against my apron clad belly on pulled the peeler towards my body. Turning the vegetable after doing so until it was peeled 3/4 the way. I flipped the vegetable and peeled the remainder of each one. 

I decided I would forgo my mandolin for julienned carrots and daikon. I would try my skills at using a chef's knife instead. This was something I had not been able to do since my strokes. It took me an hour to julienne one cup of each but I did it! I turned the cabbage in the sink every thirty minutes too.. Not too bad of a julienne job considering the awkwardness of feeling like I was doing it backwards with my non-dominant hand. It's hard for the professional chef in me to call this a good job, but the stroke survivor in me was doing the Snoopy dance of happiness. I snip the green onions with kitchen shears before removing the rubber bands.

The rest of the recipe came together as Maangchi did it. Now I've got the whole 13 lb batch of kimchi sitting in a container on the counter. This is where Maangchi and I differ. I ferment all the kimchi for three to seven days on the counter top. I let the flavors develop before I refrigerate it. Once in the refrigerator the flavors will develop more slowly.

All that is left is to flip and burp the container every day until it's to my liking. I've just made five times as much kimchi for the price of the one store bought quart sized container of kimchi.

That makes sense and cents!