Kim Chi

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pdilley

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The first non-beer brewing but non-beverage as well. That and I promised Screwtop I'd post it back before I left on holidays.



Kim Chi is a fermented cabbage dish from Korea. It has about four main flavours, cabbage, onion, garlic, and chili.

Standard Kim Chi has quite a bit of chili in it which is normal tasting to Koreans or anyone who enjoys spicy food such as myself but a milk skinned person from England might think its about the most insane heat in the entire universe. If you have had spicy Asian or Indian food and enjoy it then you can easily take the chili in Kim Chi as it is no where near as hot as some of the Indian food I've ordered up :eek:

Fermenting the cabbage breaks it down into one of the worlds healthiest foods. The anti-cancer properties of cabbage are created during fermentation and are missing or minimal in raw cabbage or cooked cabbage. It is full of healthy bacteria, primarily lactobacilli which aids your digestion (you may get a rumble on first eating if your digestive system isn't in a good state as it wakes up and kicks into gear -- mine did but stopped after a minute and never has since then) and although not a big issue for me is said to help prevent yeast infections. High in Vitamins A, B, and C. Its all good stuff. You can eat a lot, you can eat a little, its your choice, when you get low just keep making more!

You will need 2 cabbages. They will have any name like Korean Cabbage, Chinese Cabbage, or Napa Cabbage depending on where you live.
31-2.jpg


You will also need:
Spring Onions, about 6 to 10 depending on your onion taste preference
Sea Salt (or regular salt if too difficult to find)
Korean Chili Powder (or similar red flakes of crushed red chilis)
Garlic cloves (2 or 3 depending on taste)
Sugar
Small piece of ginger

Optional are onion, seafoods like oysters are popular, and other vegetables, Koreans also have a radish they dice up into cubes and give the same treatment to.

The idea is to use the salt to draw moisture out of the cabbage, this helps the cabbage stay crisp and crunchy, if you don't use salt you end up with limp and soggy cabbage so salt is your friend.

Rinse the cabbage clean and if necessary cut of the tops so you can unfold each leaf. Just like washing your underarms lift each leaf in the cabbage and salt all the sides.

Let the cabbages sit for two hours if you are in a rush or five hours or so if you have time or wish to go do something else and come back later. They are going to draw out juice so you may want to keep them in a plastic vegetable tub which is good to retain the juices that come out and put back in the Kim Chi mixture.

If you have a very large plastic mixing bowl you can use that during the next step otherwise use that big plastic tub.

Bring out your rubber kitchen gloves you bought just for the purpose of mixing Kim Chi. It helps keep the onion and garlic smell off your hands and it will be critical when you start sloshing around Chili powder and mix it into the cabbage. Nothing says "hello!" like Chili in a rubbed eye :)

Now it is time to chop the cabbage into bite size pieces. Quarter the cabbages top to bottom. Then cut the little hard stem cores off each quarter. Now simply chop the cabbage quarters into square. Something nice and bite sized. If you need a number try 5 centimeters square for a good start.

Toss the cabbage into the plastic bowl or big veggie tub.

Now cut up your spring onions. Again bite sized, if you need a number again about 5 centimeters long. And yes, all those green bits too not just the white bottom part.

Toss the spring onions into the cabbage and mix around with your gloved hands.

Put the skinned garlic cloves into a garlic press and press it into a mince. Scrape it off and into the plastic bowl or tub and mix in with your hands. Now is a good time to grate the ginger and add it if you have not done so already. Again to taste but a good starting point is about 5 grams.

If you are adding option onion do so now after chopping it up into fine squares.

Add in a small amount of sugar, a couple tablespoons should suffice.


Now comes the Chili. We are aiming for about 20 grams of the stuff which is about four heaping tablespoons of it. To me Korean Kim Chi Chili powder flakes seem hot but not super hot so if substituting go for your taste and what you like but don't try to burn down the neighbours house with the hottest stuff you can find.

Put those rubber gloves to good use and mix it all up. You can squeeze the cabbage leaves in your hands while mixing if you wish to help extract good briney juices from them.

Place the mixed Kim Chi into glass jars or if you only have plastic into plastic containers with lids.

Do not put it into the refrigerator yet, we need it to culture. Let it sit outside of the refrigerator for three to four days. If it is summer then it will start fermenting faster if it is winter it will take longer to start fermenting.

You can also leave it out as long as you like to get as sour as you like according to your taste but three to four days should suffice. Unlike sour kraut, Kim Chi is just starting to ferment to add a new flavour dimension but not fully ferment out.


As you can see there is no hard or fast rule. I have seen people cooking a paste of rice flour and water in equal ratios in a small sauce pan and then mixing the chili flakes into that. This paste is then slathered by hand on both sides of the cabbage leaves after salting and before chopping into quarters. There is no hard and fast order to it. If you do go the past know that the extra starches usually help the fermentation happen quicker so you might need to adjust your time leaving the cabbage in jars down by a day or so depending on how hot it is in your house.

I have not done it but adding salty fish or oysters or scallops is also popular to some. This standard Kim Chi though everyone will know.

kimchi.jpg
Yum! Large Bushells coffee jar of yester-year comes in handy, mine is now almost empty :(
Time to make more! :)
 
I've heard about kim chi, I work in Chinatown in Bris and the store across the street sells kim chi in tubs, might give it a go. I love chilli, regularly make Vindaloos and have chilli bushes in the garden.

Edit: I'm old enough to have had uncles etc who served in the Korean war (M.A.S.H era) and they say the winters there are arctic. So no doubt kim chi was the anti scurvy food for Korea in the same way that Sauerkraut was in central Europe, when fresh veg wasn't available for months on end.
 
Sauerkraut ist neben meinem Freund!

Ja Machael, so pull out your dead slug and balance it between your upper lip and the end your nose because nothing is better in winter than roasted pork knuckles with a side of mashed potatoes and sauerkraut!
Except a nice glass of a winter warmer or some potent viking mead to sip by the fireplace afterwards!

Kim Chi really isn't that sour in comparison to kraut, more hint of tart. Its mostly the mild sweet and crunch of the cabbage with spice to warm you up after a bowl of the stuff. Kraut you leave out for weeks or months in winter to develop good sauer flavour. All of the world used fermented foods to store them before refrigeration, we lack all the extra nutrients they unlocked today with our super ultra pasteurized wonder processed ultra bleached food product injected with stabilizers and wrapped in shrink wrap and delivered 3 months after factory floor to supermarket shelf food. Then we take multi-vitamins and all sorts of health kicks to try and get back something in our bodies :)

Even grains need fermentation to unlock their uptake in our digestive systems. Our flours are stripped of the 24 nutrients in the grain kernel so they last years on the shelf without spoiling, no wonder AG brewing ends up so yummy with all those nutrients ending up in our home brew.

I have the soured milk and rye and wild yeast starter for Finnish sourdough breads I have to get out this weekend and make some toasty loaves with too, where will I ever fit in time to get down to the LHBS for more yeasts for brewing! :p

OT: My Uncle was in the Korean War, but he learned some awesome pie baking recipes and techniques from rotations onto K.P. duty!
 
Wow, great stuff BP and so's kim chi!

A while back, SBS' fantasically- mouth- watering Food Safari had a Korean episode featuring a small firm that produces it and they ran us through the process of making it. Soon after I saw some at the local Asian grocer, so being the curious type, I gave it a try. Pretty yum, we all loved it! We regularly buy a tub now, a healthy scoff for my Geordie spousie who is definately a chilli nut. Here's the program's featured kim chi recipe.

I'm not a huge chilli fancier, but do rather enjoy spicy, traditional foods and methods. I even make tandoori paste from scratch with my own garden's produce, (turmeric is easy to grow, grab a piece from the greengrocer and treat it like ginger). IMO, food doesn't have to be painfull (either going in or coming out) to enjoy spicyness, but personally a moderate chilli level is OK in my books. Interesting how the best rogan josh I've had was in Pitlochry in the middle of Scotland, not that I've even been to its birthplace and sampled the originals though.
 
Just a couple corrections.

The first time I just measured. Now that I got digital scales I measured the weight of the Chili. 4 Tablespoons will be about 40 grams, not 20.

This time I let the cabbage leaves sit for 6 hours salted to draw out the juice. This was too long as it allowed a lot more salt taste to penetrate the cabbage. I also used white salt from Coles this time and it might also attribute to the saltiness compared with the sea salt. Being smaller particles more goes in all the nooks and crannies.

So because there is no rule on exact measures, with regards to salt this is the best rule to use:

With the cabbage, taste it. It shouldn't taste "salty". At the same time, you should be able to taste the salt. Try adding little at a time, and test it frequently. When you reach the point where the cabbage "zings", you've got it. The right balance of salt makes the cabbage come alive, so its dancing on your tongue. Practice! You'll get it.

Too much salt and you know what thats like :) or at least my latest batch does. Practice makes perfect. I'm going to draw out the salt in a water bath, losing the valuable cabbage juice unfortunately. Then re-pitch in some garlic and ginger and the chili flakes. I'll kick it off since it doesn't have much natural juice with some juice from the already fermented previous batch.



Other Healthy Additions to try:
o Carrots
o Cucumbers
o Broccoli
o Apple
o Orange
o Lemon


Cheers,
BP
 
this may be disgusting to some.. but... my new favourite snack is Kim Chi, on a water cracker, with sardines.

YUM!
 
Kimchi is the most amazing food Ive discovered in four years
I love it.
Kinchi omlettes rule.
 
Every thread should have a touch of Ying for its Yang

I spent 8 weeks in Korea last year and early this year - excellent country - Seoul is a crazy place.

But when - every meal has 23 dishes - 8 of which are various varieties of smelly fermented cabbage - in varying degrees of ring stingingness - it wears you down.

I love Korean food - but I am a Kim Chi Dodger.

RM
 
When you are not into the tang, there is always the little tiny sugar cured fish things :)..

Most of the little dishes also are fresh veggie like salad "bites".

Us Westerners would probably go for the cook your own slices of meat at your own table type of food though.

One thing I can say about Korean food is they really know their BBQ quite well, I think of the Asian countries they have the best BBQ items like Bulgogi Beef... Yum :p
 
Great stuff Brewer Pete,

Thanks for the recipes, have the Kraut printed and ready to go, a little different from the old family one I have, but hey every family recipe is a tad different for all recipes :)

Cheers,

Screwy

PS: That reminds me my sourdough starter was tossed during the move 4 months ago. Must kick off a new one tomorrow.
 
Once you have made a Kraut you can cheat and do a quick Kim Chi by starting with some of your Kraut as the base to help the Kim Chi come along.


Any time your energy is low, or you think you might be fighting off a cold, pour out some of the kim chi juice that collects in the bottom of the jar and drink it -- its a wonderful tonic for what ails you!


Been a bit lazy with my Sourdough Rye Starter. Its in the fridge maturing ;) Past brew day snafu and out all weekend meant no time to bake. Some of these have 3 day rise times! But ooooooh the taste!
 
Great work Brewer Pete.

I have some fake (cooked with wine and vinegar) sauerkraut in my fridge that I knocked up to get rid of a large cabbage I was given.
I drink apple cider vinegar regularly and eat a lot of cabbage. I think that fermented cabbage will make you next to bloody invincible.

At the Korean supermarket nr Syd Central, there is serious product variety in the kimchi aisle.
 
Korean BBQ is amazing. Having said that I do still get pissed off about having to pay to cook my own food in a restaurant!

Korean food in general is pretty great. I can't imagine any culture anywhere having a more balanced and interesting diet.
 
Tell me more about said concept? :rolleyes:

Picture says a 1000 words... keep a napkin handy to mop up the drool
korean-bbq-01.jpg



Any fermented food is good for your health in general. Especially when ill, take a swig of the kraut juice any time. Being brewers we know that ferment gives us interesting and good things, things that are dead, pasteurized and down right swill tasting when bought commercial in the supermarkets or attached liquor stores thereof. Make it yourself and you get rewarded.
 
I have Kim Chi and "Son of" Kim Chi, bubbling away on the kitchen counter.

The cabbages ended up being larger than before so I needed two Bushels coffee jars and my super large one is the only one I have so I grabbed a normal sized jar and stuffed it full of kim chi and pounded it down with my fist until the lovely red juices covered the top of the kim chi.

One note though, if you fill the jars to the top and leave the lids on loose while it ferments on the kitchen counter you'll have juice pushed up and out the cap and over the kitchen counter by the fermentation action. I've moved them onto the dish drain board above the second sink for now and they are happily bubbling away.

Will have to get photos later once I charge the camera again.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete
 
I used about 4 Tablespoons of Sea Salt with the latest batch of Kim Chi. I think it was a bit much so will cut it down to 3 Tablespoons with the following batch after this.

Ahhh, this is the life, enjoying some fermented spicy Kim Chi you made (fermented) yourself along with a tasty Dark Ale (BribieG inspired) you made (fermented) yourself as a snack before the evening meal.

Yum! Lovin' it! Spicy food goes great with beer.


I got the camera charged up so I'll snap my latest brew and add to this post.

Used 5 heaping tablespoons of Kim Chi crushed red peppers so the spice is lower than before but still too much for an English wife :)


Cheers,
Brewer Pete
 
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