Feb 17, 2023

How to make Kimchi

Ingredients
Utensils
Steps
Recipes with kimchi

Kimchi/ 김치 became one of the most known Korean food to which people relate when they think about this country. Some came to like it because they saw it in K-dramas, watched K-Pop idols eating it, from mukbangs/ 먹방 (food-eating videos), or simply because they tried it in a restaurant or at a friend's house.

Some of us like it so much that we decided to make it ourselves. And as it might surprise you it is not that hard to make. We would say that depending on the country and city you live in, finding the right ingredients is the hard part of making Kimchi.

There are many Kimchi recipes on the internet, one might have an extra ingredient another might not use an ingredient, and so on. Here is a recipe we adapted while combining more great recipes found online. We made kimchi with this recipe in both Korea and Romania.

Ingredients:

2-3 kg baechu (known as napa cabbage or some countries call it Chinese cabbage)
144 gr. salt
18 gr. rice flour
18 sugar (of your choice)
68 gr. minced garlic (depending on the size we used around 20-25 cloves)
6 gr. minced ginger
120 ml. fish sauce (can be replaced with soy sauce for a vegan option)
60 gr. fermented salted shrimp/ saeujeot
250 gr. gochugaru (Korean chilly flakes)
1 onion (medium to big)
8 green onions
50 gr. chives
50 gr. leek (can use only the green onion some prefer green onions for a softer texture) optional
50 gr. carrot
232 gr. radish, prefer the Korean type (also known as Daikon radish)
473 ml. water

Utensils:

Knife
Kitchen scissors (easier to cut)
Large basin
Container for storage (of your choice)

Steps

Salting the cabbage:

Cut the cabbage in half. An easier method is to cut the bottom and then just split it open in half with your bare hands.
You will have to cut the bottom of each half again for about 5 cm long, depending on your cabbage size. Be careful not to cut too much and detach the leaves. They need to still be attached a little bit to the bottom.
Take a large basin and put enough water to cover all the cabbage. Get all the halves in the water to wet them before starting the salting.
Start putting salt and rubbing it all over the halves, especially at the bottoms since it's harder.
Put all halves with salt in the basin and let them soak for 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours, turning them on the other side every 30 minutes. We recommend using your hand or taking a wooden spoon bring the salt from the bottom of the basin all over the cabbage. Meanwhile, you can work on the porridge and cut the rest of the vegetables.
Now that the salting time has passed, we will have to wash the cabbage a few times. Take every half and wash it under cold water 2-3 times to clean it well. While washing you can also break the halves into quarters (as we cut them a little before). Some people also cut out the remaining core however, we like it.

Prepare the vegetables:

Chop the green onions, leeks, and chives.
Mince the garlic cloves, ginger, and onion.
Cut the carrots julienne or matchsticks (if you don't know the techniques, julienne is cutting into 1/4 cm wide long thin sticks and matchsticks 1/2 cm)
Cut the radish either into matchsticks or, as we like it, 2-3 cm long and 1/4 cm wide rectangles

Making the porridge:

Place a pan on the stove in which you put the rice flour and water and let it cook over small to medium heat. This should take about 10-15 minutes, depending on the pan you use (we used a saucepan). Don't forget to mix throughout the whole time.
Once you started to see bubbles on top, put the sugar in and cook for 1 more minute stirring all the time.
Turn off the heat and place it somewhere safe to cool off.
Once entirely cooled off pour it into a large bowl (we advise you to use a large enough bowl in which later we will put the halves one by one to mix it with the paste), add the garlic, onion, ginger, chopped fermented shrimp, and gochugaru, and mix it well so there won't be any lumps.
Take all the vegetables and add them to the bowl as well. Mix until they are all covered in paste and they don't stick to each other.

Start making the kimchi:

the cabbage and put it in the bowl. If the bowl you used for making the porridge was too small you'll have to move it into a bigger one not to make a mess (also, less washing).
Cover very well every leaf with the paste and then wrap the leaves around and put it in your recipient.
And your kimchi is done. 끝. 수고했어요!
You can eat now, we like the taste of it after 2-3 days of fermentation*.

*The kimchi will start to ferment at room temperature around day 1 or 2. However, if your room is warmer and has high humidity the fermentation process can be faster. If you made pickles before, you know that when it starts to sour and make bubbles you have to open your recipient once in a while and pushed on top of it or stir to let your pickles breathe.