Friday, November 4, 2011

Korean Exploration ::: How to make KimChi / 김치 ? - Spicy fermented cabbage with radish

Homemade KimChi Soup / 홈메이드 김치 국물

Walking into a dozen of korean shops, you will definately see KimChi 김치 it's like must have dish in Korea! With this basic homemade in hand you won't be worried about the prices you are pay for your KimChi used for your recipes.

Total cost is approx S$50 for 7kgs of KimChi. That's a lot of KimChi...!!!

Let's start with your shopping list:

3 fresh Chinese Cabbage
4 1/2 cups or 990g of FINE Salt
2 litres of Water
3 heaped tablespoons of Glutinous Rice Starch
2 cup or 256g Korean Chili Powder
1 1/2 cup Fish Sauce
6 tablespoons of White Sugar
18 Spring Onions
15 cloves of Crushed Garlic
3 knobs / 1cm of Ginger
3/4 Brown Onion
700g White Chinese Radish

Cabbage
How to make KimChi / 김치 ? - Spicy fermented cabbage and radish

Chop the Chinese Cabbage into half then slice from the bottom twice to make it 3 slices. This will make 6 slices for each cabbage. Remember not to slice all as this way it will fasten your salting and KimChi Paste spreading later.

How to make KimChi / 김치 ? - Spicy fermented cabbage and radish

Soak them in slight salted water, while grating the White Chinese Radish and slicing the Spring Onion.

How to make KimChi / 김치 ? - Spicy fermented cabbage and radish

How to make KimChi / 김치 ? - Spicy fermented cabbage and radish

Drain and remove the washed cabbage into a tub.

How to make KimChi / 김치 ? - Spicy fermented cabbage and radish

Lightly salt the leaves. Outside - in between - Inside. After salting all of the cabbage, set it inside the tub for 2 hours, then rotate the bottom cabbage with the top ones halfway through leaving it for another 2 hours.

How to make KimChi / 김치 ? - Spicy fermented cabbage and radish


Kimchi Sauce
Now you can put these ingredients from the Korean shop in use!
How to make KimChi / 김치 ? - Spicy fermented cabbage and radish

Place the Garlics, Ginger, Brown Onion in the food processor, to make it into a paste.

Can either use grated White Chinese Radish or put it in the food processor with the rest of the above.

Put the water and sugar in a pot to boil till the sugar totally dissolve, turn off the fire and add in Glutinous Rice Starch and stir till mixture is smooth. Place a side to cool.

Scoop out all the paste into big pot or bowl add in the cool mixture then add in the Korean Chili Powder.

How to make KimChi / 김치 ? - Spicy fermented cabbage and radish

If you're mixing with hands like me, remember to wear a glove! Don't be a hero, your hands will be hurt by the spicy level of this KimChi Paste.

Mix well then add in the white radish and spring onion into the paste, if the paste is too dry, add more water little by little to loosen it up a little bit. Taste the mixture and make sure it is saltier, spicy, and somewhat refreshing and sweet because of the White Radish.

How to make KimChi / 김치 ? - Spicy fermented cabbage and radish

Rub the paste all over the cabbage in the similar way as the Chinese Cabbage is salted, make sure this delicious & spicy KimChi paste is in between every leaf. Be generous!

Store in a big plastic containers.

How to make KimChi / 김치 ? - Spicy fermented cabbage and radish

Now, just store and leave it out at room temperature for 9hours minimum or 24hours maximum for it to ferment then it can be refrigerated.

I took some pictures!

Fermenting after 2hours.......

How to make KimChi / 김치 ? - Spicy fermented cabbage and radish

Fermenting after 4hours.......see the juices!

How to make KimChi / 김치 ? - Spicy fermented cabbage and radish
How to make KimChi / 김치 ? - Spicy fermented cabbage and radish

Fermenting after 6hours.......

How to make KimChi / 김치 ? - Spicy fermented cabbage and radish

I'm pretty tired so i went to sleep... =P

i stopped after letting it ferment for 12hours.

My suggestion is to cut the KimChi into bite sized pieces, keep in containers. In the below picture the container can store about 500gram. Why bother storing in this way? It's because you would wanna bless your friends. Whenever your friends pop by you can just grab one tub for them to bring home! They will leave your house with a BIG smile.

Homemade KimChi Soup / 홈메이드 김치 국물

A must try and learn this "very high skill" recipe which can save a whole lot of money by making this Homemade Kimchi by yourself. Along with dozens of happy faces that you will be blessing!

Remember to keep a lot for yourself too coz i'll be doing a few recipe with this basic dish!

Click here for our blog page Cooking Classes for more recipes. Hope you will be inspired~

4 comments:

  1. Gorgeous kimchi! Thank you for sharing it.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! I;m hoping to make more types of kimchi soon~

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  2. hi, is it compulsory to do the glutinous rice paste? Cos i saw from other blog, she just add in the pepper to the radish & the rest ingredient and rub it all over the cabbage. I am confuse now >.<

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi bobocha... ^^
      the Glutinous Rice Starch actually makes the mixture thicker so it can stick on the cabbage easily. you don't want to let the mixture be too watery as you can see after fragmenting for a while there will be natural kimchi juice which will later on blend well.. :)

      Delete