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Kimchi Recipes Vary From Household to Household:
Kimchi is a must-have in most Korean meals and households, and every family and restaurant has a different recipe. Some Kimchi have sour, sweet, spicy, and fishy flavor profiles or have a nice balance with those flavors. This recipe took me a few tries to get to the point where my wife and I enjoyed it. It’s heavy on garlic and nice and sour to our liking.
We measured most of the ingredients to share with everyone, but most Korean moms don’t use exact measurements in recipes or have anything written down that they follow. It’s all done by sight and taste. Getting a kimchi recipe you like will take some trial and error. Our recipe balances sour and spicy with heavy garlic notes.
Kimchi Making Ingredients:
- 2 Large Nappa cabbages
- 2-3 cups of salt (fine, coarse, sea-whatever you have)
- 3 large white onions
- 3 thumbs of ginger (no skin)
- 1 Korean pear (apple is ok)
- 60 cloves of garlic
- 1-2 cups rice flour
- 1 bundle of buchu
- 1/2 Korean radish
- 2 cups gochu garu (we used 2 cups)
- 1/2-1 cup fish sauce
Kimchi Making Steps
Prepping and salting
1) Wash and cut cabbage into quarters. Cut off some of the root ends.
2) In a massive bowl, salt every layer of the cabbage leaves
3) Cover the salted cabbage with water in the bowl. You can use a heavy plate to weigh the cabbage down to keep it submerged. Keep the cabbage in the water for a day. You’ll know it’s adequately salted when it flops like wet socks.
4) Rinse and taste for salt. If it’s not sufficiently salted after 24 hours and the leaves are stiff after 24 hours of salting, use more salt next time.
Kimchi ”Sauce”
(You’ll need Korean radish, buchu, onions, garlic, Asian pear, ginger, gochu garu, a large mixing bowl, fish sauce, rice flour, and water)
5) Grind the onion, ginger, pear, and garlic into a thick paste using a food processor.
6) Make a rice paste with rice flour and water in a pot on the stove, similar to the consistency in the video linked up top.
7) Julienne cut (small strips) some Korean radish and cut some buchu (garlic chives).
8) Add the blended mix paste, cut buchu and radish, rice paste, gochu garu to your taste, and fish sauce to a big mixing bowl. Mix thoroughly.
Kimchi Assembly
9) Thinly coat the cabbage leaves with the mixture. Use a sheet pan to keep the mess contained.
10) Store the cabbage in a kimchi container or large jar after coating it. Leave it in a cool place outside the fridge to allow fermentation for at least two days. If you live in a hotter climate, leave it outside for 6-12 hours and taste it to see if it needs more time. We store it for three days for some extra sour flavor notes.
