Kim Chi

Yesterday was my first foray into making Kim Chi. For those of you who don't know Kim Chi is a cabbage and pepper ferment, kind of like sauerkraut with some peppers and garlic. There's also been some interesting studies on Kim Chi possibly helping to cure bird flu http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4347443.stm

After doing some online research I found a couple of different websites that had instructions on how to make Kim Chi, the most helpful being http://kimchi.pyongyang-metro.com/
This site had step by step instructions and pictures to go with it. The other helpful site was http://www.angelfire.com/journal/adoptionhelp/kimchi.html
Which contained recipes for lots of different types of Kim Chi.

My process ended up being a little different from both of these. First, there were no nappa cabbage at the Good Food Store so I had to improvise. I used three different types of cabbage. One head of red cabbage, one head of some leafy cabbage and one head of green cabbage. \
Basic Ingredients:
1 Head of Leafy Cabbage
1 Head of Green Cabbage
1 Head of Red Cabbage
6 Cloves of Garlic
1/2 an Onion
Some Chipotle Powder
Some Salt

Step One: I cut up into about two inch squares then placed in a bowl

Step Two: I salted the cabbage with natural sea salt. I did not really measure how much salt I put into the cabbage but it was a few handfuls. I then mixed the salt into the cabbage and tried to press it into the leaves a little bit.

Step Three: I grabbed a beer and let cabbage sit for two hours stirring it occasionally

Step Four: Wash the cabbage, make sure you get a lot of the salt off, try and squeeze out as much of the water as you can.

Step Five: Chop up the onion and garlic. A garlic press would have been nice here but the flat of the blade worked pretty well. The important thing is to get both the onion and garlic as small as possible.

Step Six: Put it all together, this part involves mixing in the chipotle powder, once again I did not really measure it but when everything in bowl starts to look a little red you're good.

Step Seven: Put it in jars, I used four pint sized mason jars but whatever you can fit it in will work.

Step Eight: More waiting, I'm going to let this mixture sit for four days or so. You want to make sure that the brine that develops in the jars covers all the ingredients by the end of the second day or so. If a brine doesn't develop just add some water and some more salt.

So, that's basically it. It's a great dish that works well on rice, in salads or just by itself and I'm excited to see how mine will work with a different type of cabbage. I'm going to be making more today as I had some left over cabbage so I might try and take some pictures.