I am a new food blogger, not critiquing food but I enjoy cooking very much! Today I would like to share Maangchi's simple Kimchi making to you guys. I have modified her recipe catered to my preference and the ingredients that I could find in Singapore.
Here's her link and video: http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/easy-kimchi
Ingredients:
Baechu (napa cabbage 10 pounds), salt, sweet rice flour, sugar, water, garlic, ginger, onion, fish sauce, hot pepper flakes, green onions, radish.
Directions:
For Napa Cabbage
1. Trim the discolored outer leaves of 10 pounds of napa cabbage.
2. Cut the cabbage lengthwise into quarters and remove the cores. Chop it up into bite size pieces.
3. Soak the pieces of cabbage in cold water and put the soaked cabbage into a large basin. Sprinkle salt.
*tip: 1 cup of salt will be used for 10 pounds of napa cabbage
4. Every 30 minutes, turn the cabbage over to salt evenly (total salting time will be 1½ hours).
5. 1½ hours later, rinse the cabbage in cold water 3 times to clean it thoroughly.
6.Drain the cabbage and set aside.
Make porridge:
1. Put 3 cups of water (cold water) and ½ cup sweet rice flour (I used glutinous rice,糯米粉) in a pot and mix it well and bring to a boil.
2. Keep stirring until the porridge makes bubbles (about 5 minutes).
3. Add ¼ cup sugar. Stir and cook for a few more mintues until it’s translucent.
4. Cool it down.
Make kimchi paste:
1. Place the cold porridge into a large bowl.
2. Now you will add all your ingredients one by one.
3. Add 1 cup of fish sauce, 2.5 cups of hot pepper flakes (depending on your taste), 1 cup of crushed garlic, 1-2 tbs of minced ginger, 1 cup amount of minced onion.
*tip: much easier to use a food processor.
4. Add 10 diagonally-sliced green onions, 2 cups of radish (usually Chinese use it to cook soup)
5. Mix all ingredients well and your kimchi paste is done.
Action! Mix the cabbage with the kimchi paste! (This is where I think is the fun part!!!)
1. Put the kimchi paste in a large basin and add all the cabbage.
2. Mix it by hand.
*tip: If your basin is not large enough to mix all the ingredients at once, do it bit by bit.
3. Put the kimchi into an air-tight sealed plastic container or glass jar.
Some of my comments for making kimchi that are not stated by Maangchi.
1. It is better not to add Chinese raddish inside the kimchi. This is because I found out that the kimchi that I made is much sourer than the normal Kimchi sold in market. I think this is because I was using the different raddish(Maangchi used Korean Raddish), therefore, it makes a difference. I think Chinese raddish ferments faster.
2. Always use lock and lock or glass jar to store your kimchi. This is because air will come out during the fermentation process and it might POP up your container cover!
3. Buy plastic wrapper for kitchen use! Storing Kimchi in your fridge will produce super strong smell. Store your Kimchi in container and wrap it up with plastic wrapper before putting in your fridge.You may also get the grounded coffee from Starbucks for free and put it in your fridge to reduce the strong Kimchi smell.
4. For first try, try to divide the ingredient by 4. It is too much for us where we do not eat kimchi everyday! Therefore, you can try making your kimchi by dividing all the ingredients mentioned above by 4.
