How to Make Kimchi
Nothing in the world is easier than making kimchi, yet nothing is more difficult. Even a novice can rinse the vegetables clean, salt them, rinse them again the next day, add garlic, and leave them in a cool place for a day or two to ferment naturally, then eat them just as they are. That's all there is to it. Yet making the best and most nutritious kimchi is a high art accessible only to the seasoned specialist. Thus, although almost every Korean housewife knows how to make kimchi, few can claim to make it at its very best.
Here is how to make the popular cabbage pickle known as tong kimchi, one of the varieties of winter pickles which are most widely consumed in Korea.
Ingredients and Properties :
Main ingredients : 2 heads Chinese cabbage, 1 medium-size white radish
Flavorings : 60g mustard greens, 80g watercress, 70g green onions, 40g cheonggak seaweed(glue plant), 2 heads of garlic, peeled, 1/2 ginger root (based on the size of Korean or Japanese ginger, which is smaller than tropical or subtropical ginger), 1/2 Asian pear, 1 chestnut, 120g raw oysters, 1/3 cup salted shrimp, Salted corvina, or 1 fresh pollack (1/4 cod can be substituted), 2/3 cup chili flakes (it is best not to use the very spicy chili produced in Southeast Asia, but if no other kind is available, reduce the quantity to 1/10), 2 tablespoons dry chili strips, 1 cup salt
The above flavorings are the best, but some may be hard to find when they are out of season, and it is acceptable to omit the mustard greens, watercress, cheonggak, pear, chestnut, salted corvina, or fresh pollack. The remaining ingredients are essential.
1. Dissolve the salt in 5 cups water.
2. Remove (but do not discard) the outer leaves of the cabbage, rinse it clean, and trim it to shape.
3. In the evening, soak the prepared cabbage in the salt water, then remove it and pile it up in a jar or plastic container. 3-4 hours later, turn it upside down. Early in the morning, rinse the cabbage, drain it, and cut it in half.
4 .That evening, rinse and trim the white radish, green onions, mustard greens, and cheonggak. Soak the watercress in water. Cut about half the white radish into thin strips and the rest into pieces about 6cm long and 1cm thick to use as packing.
5. Mix the packing radish with a little salt and chili flakes and set it aside.
6. Soak the shelled oysters in lightly salted water. Cut the watercress and mustard greens into pieces about 4cm long. Finely chop the white parts of the green onions.
7. Cut the garlic and ginger into thin strips.
8. Peel and thinly slice the chestnut, and cut the pear into thin strips.
9. Mix the chili flakes with the strips of white radish in a large bowl. Add the salted shrimp and the other flavorings you have prepared as above, and mix well.
The above flavorings are the best, but some may be hard to find when they are out of season, and it is acceptable to omit the mustard greens, watercress, cheonggak, pear, chestnut, salted corvina, or fresh pollack. The remaining ingredients are essential.
1. Spread this filling between the leaves of the cabbage. Fold the leaves toward the stem to enclose the filling.
2. To the packing prepared in #4, add the minced garlic, ginger watercress, finely chopped mustard greens, and a little of the liquid from a jar of salted shrimp or other salted fish, and mix together.
3. Put a little of the packing in a pot and pile the stuffed cabbage on top of it, adding a little more packing after each layer of cabbage. Repeat until the jar is about 80% full, then top with the outer leaves of the cabbage and weight the kimchi with a flat stone.
