A Little Less Than Spicy Kimchi

Wowowow this kimchi slaps!

Kimchi is a spicy fermented vegetable, traditionally made of radish or cabbage and has been a staple in South-Korean cuisine for over 3,000 years. Like most other fermented foods it has evolved from a way to preserve vegetables during their off seasons, to our contemporary side dish.

As a fermented food, kimchi is naturally rich in probiotic bacteria, is very good for your gut and has innumerable immune benefits. I love learning about the ways that different foods can benefit your body, so I can go on and on about what kimchi can do for you.

But instead I'll let you build a little bit of kimchi history, by giving you some time to make and ferment this.

I've made kimchi a couple of times but this rendition has a certain sweetness that you won't find in a traditional kimchi and I highly recommend it. It is so easy to make on your own and even more rewarding when you add it to your favorite dishes.

This kimchi is definitely a fridge staple of mine and when I am out of it, I crave it. While pungent it may be, it is such a versatile condiment, has a long shelf life, is a great gift for friends, and may change your life.

The recipe doesn't call for many ingredients but it does leave you with room for creativity.

For the cabbage, any kind will do, but Napa has a nice texture and the crinkles of the leaves hold the fermentation liquid and flavour well. You can add green onions, carrots, radishes, or use this same recipe with cucumbers and make kimchi pickles (let me know how this goes).

Adjust any of these ingredients to your liking, more Gochujang (hot pepper paste) for even more spiciness, less brown sugar and maple syrup for a stronger, tangier and spicier flavour, and of course you can substitute out the fish sauce with no replacement for a vegan kimchi.

I really like how the brown sugar and maple balance out the spiciness and intermingle with the other flavours like the fish sauce, garlic and ginger to give it more umami, but play with it! This recipe is now yours!

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Ingredients:

1/4 cup of salt (iodine free)

Water (filtered)

12 cloves of garlic (grated)

3 inches of ginger (peeled and grated)

1/2 cup Gochujang hot pepper paste

1 yellow onion (grated)

4 tbsp Maple syrup

3 tbsp Brown sugar

4 tbsp Fish sauce

2 tbsp Mirin (sweet cooking, rice seasoning)

1 tbsp Soy sauce

Instructions:

1. Slice cabbage into halves and cut out the core.

2. Cut into bit size pieces, 1-2 inch squares.

3. Rinse and drain.

4. Salt the cabbage: Put all of the rinsed cabbage slices into a large bowl. In a small bowl dilute salt with water, and pour on top of the cabbage. Add more water as needed to cover all of the cabbage, and mix with your hands a little bit so that the salt water is integrated. Cover the bowl with a plate and place something heavy like canned beans to weigh down the plate. Let this sit for an hour or more and toss a couple times to make sure that the salt reaches all of the pieces evenly.

5. In the meantime prepare the seasoning by grating/ blending or food processing the garlic, ginger, and onion, the texture should be smooth but should not be liquified. In a small bowl, mix grated garlic, ginger, and onion with the maple syrup, brown sugar, fish sauce, Mirin and soy sauce, and give it a taste, here you can add more or less of anything to your liking.

6. Once the cabbage is done soaking, drain it, and mix in the seasoning.

7. Stuff the kimchi in a clean jar leaving about a half an inch to an inch of space at the top. (Hermetic jars are the best, but a cleaned out tomato sauce jar, or mason jar is great too).

8. Let sit outside in a shadey spot, or inside at room temperature for a week. It does begin to smell wherever you put it, so I do prefer to leave it on the porch.