Hey guys! I've gotten really into kimchi
recently. Kimchi is a really traditional
Korean side dish. You guys, it is so
delicious, it's good for you,
it's way easier to make than you think
it is, and it's really fun to cook with!
So I'll take you through all that stuff,
come with me!
You want to start with napa cabbage. A
lot of it! Ten pounds of napa cabbage. Cut
lengthwise into quarters and then
chopped into bite-sized pieces. You can
discard the cores or save the cores for
a vegetable stock. And rinse the pieces
in water, then salt the rinsed cabbage.
For this much cabbage I use a total of
one cup of salt, which seems like a lot
but trust me, it works. So what you want
to do is slowly add the salt every 30
minutes, turning the cabbage to salt it
evenly. Do this every 30 minutes, three
times...so that an hour and a half after
you've begun, drain the cabbage and set
it aside.
Fermentation happens in an environment
where only probiotics can thrive, and in
the case of kimchi, that is salt. And
that's why salting the cabbage is
arguably the most important aspect of
making kimchi. So the base recipe I used
was from Maangchi, this awesome Korean woman who shares her recipes on YouTube.
She is kind of my favorite person...I've
never met her, but I can just tell.
Hi everybody!
After prepping the cabbage, the first
cooking step is to make the porridge of
1/2 cup sweet rice flour and 3 cups of
water. Bring it to a boil and stir it for
5 minutes. Add 1/4 cup sugar and continue
stirring until translucent. Let it cool.
Now it's time to make the kimchi paste.
It starts with your cold porridge, a cup
of crushed garlic, 2 tablespoons minced
ginger and 1 cup of chopped onion. Then
you add one cup of fish sauce. Blend
these things together in a food
processor.
Now take your cooled rice porridge
mixture and add in the ingredients you
just blended together. Now add in two
cups of gochujang, the Korean hot pepper
spice, and mix well. Drain any excess
water from the cabbage. I'm also adding
kale to my base greens here. It's a tip I
learned from Jordan Bourke, who you'll
meet in next week's video! Now chop up
some of the veggie add-ins: 10 green
onions, diagonally sliced, 2 cups of leek,
chopped, 2 cups of Korean radish, julienned,
and 1/4 cup of carrot, julienned. Now just
mix those veggies in with the paste then
all you have to do is mix your cabbage
in with the paste! And put it in an
airtight sealed container.
Maangchi eats some right away, but puts most of it in the fridge. I looked at what
other cooks say to do, and it varies from
putting it in the fridge immediately, to
waiting two to three days to kick-start
the fermentation, which is the digestion
of sugars into acids, gases or alcohol.
Fermentation is what gives kimchi its
effervescence, its tang, its funk. The
carbon dioxide gas causes the kimchi to
kind of bubble and fizz and you'll
actually see the bubbles forming in the
jar. Lactic acid is what gives kimchi
it's wonderful tartness, but it also
protects it from harmful bacteria. The
production of lactic acid lowers the pH
level, where other bacteria can be
introduced. It's also why kimchi has such
a long shelf life. It's like pickles, you can keep this
stuff in the fridge forever and it won't
go bad. Store it refrigerated, covered and
totally submerged in its brine.
I'll also show you my two favorite ways
to eat kimchi currently, and that
includes a guest appearance by the
awesome
Jordan Bourke. But that's next week! Keep
your eyes peeled for that video. As
always guys, keep it quirky! Speaking of
keep it quirky, I have just released my
new podcast called Keep It Quirky. I'm so
excited about it, go check it out! [link in the description box below]
Enjoy kimchi, keep a quirky, and I'll see you next week!
