How to Make Authentic Korean Kimchi
Authentic & Traditional Korean Kimchi
Ingredients
1 fresh Chinese cabbage, dark green outer leaves removed
1 1/2 cup cooking salt
1L water
1 heaped tbsp glutinous rice starch (sticky rice powder, not regular rice powder)
1 cup Korean chilli powder – aka gochugaru (not flakes, look for it at your local Korean grocery store)
1/2 cup fish sauce
2 tbsp white sugar
6 spring onions, washed and sliced on an angle into slices about 1-2″ long
5 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 knob of ginger, grated
1/4 nashi pear, cored and peeled
1/4 brown onion, peeled
200g white/chinese radish (long and white as opposed to small, round and pink-tinged)
1. Cut the cabbage in halves or quarters, and cut into the stem to remove most of it.
2. Combine 1L water with 1/2 cup of cooking salt into a large bowl, then plunge one half or quarter of cabbage into the water at a time. Carefully separate the leaves layer by layer and make sure that you get the salted water right to the base of the leaves.
3. Drain water from the cabbage segments, then sprinkle a light layer of cooking salt over each layer of leaves, making sure to get more towards the thick, white base of the leaf rather than the thinner, green end. This is usually done by coating the lower half of your fingers in salt and using a flicking motion. Don’t feel that you have to use the ENTIRE 1 cup of salt here – just as much as is needed to give the leaves a light sprinkling – its hard to judge how much salt you will need/use as it depends on how big and how ‘ripe’ your cabbage is.
4. Place the cabbage segments into a bowl and leave covered for 5-6 hours, or till cabbage is floppy enough so that the leaves can be bent over, but still make a crisp ‘snapping’ noise when snapped.
5. After leaving for 5-6 hours, rinse the lettuce twice in clean water, then squeeze as much water out of the lettuce as humanly possible (yes, squishing the cabbage is perfectly alright), and leave on a strainer for another 15-30 mins to drain the
Ingredients
1 fresh Chinese cabbage, dark green outer leaves removed
1 1/2 cup cooking salt
1L water
1 heaped tbsp glutinous rice starch (sticky rice powder, not regular rice powder)
1 cup Korean chilli powder – aka gochugaru (not flakes, look for it at your local Korean grocery store)
1/2 cup fish sauce
2 tbsp white sugar
6 spring onions, washed and sliced on an angle into slices about 1-2″ long
5 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 knob of ginger, grated
1/4 nashi pear, cored and peeled
1/4 brown onion, peeled
200g white/chinese radish (long and white as opposed to small, round and pink-tinged)
1. Cut the cabbage in halves or quarters, and cut into the stem to remove most of it.
2. Combine 1L water with 1/2 cup of cooking salt into a large bowl, then plunge one half or quarter of cabbage into the water at a time. Carefully separate the leaves layer by layer and make sure that you get the salted water right to the base of the leaves.
3. Drain water from the cabbage segments, then sprinkle a light layer of cooking salt over each layer of leaves, making sure to get more towards the thick, white base of the leaf rather than the thinner, green end. This is usually done by coating the lower half of your fingers in salt and using a flicking motion. Don’t feel that you have to use the ENTIRE 1 cup of salt here – just as much as is needed to give the leaves a light sprinkling – its hard to judge how much salt you will need/use as it depends on how big and how ‘ripe’ your cabbage is.
4. Place the cabbage segments into a bowl and leave covered for 5-6 hours, or till cabbage is floppy enough so that the leaves can be bent over, but still make a crisp ‘snapping’ noise when snapped.
5. After leaving for 5-6 hours, rinse the lettuce twice in clean water, then squeeze as much water out of the lettuce as humanly possible (yes, squishing the cabbage is perfectly alright), and leave on a strainer for another 15-30 mins to drain the