배추김치 How to make cabbage Kimchi

Ingredients 

1. 2 Napa cabbage 배추 2 통
2. White Asian radish(1.5 pound)  무
3. 5 heads of green onion 쪽파
4. two cups of coarse salt(kosher salt) 굵은 소금 (Natural premium sea salt for Kimchi)
5. 10 cups of water 물
6. 1 and a half cup of red pepper powder 고춧가루 (Korean red pepper powder)
7. 2 Tbs of sugar 설탕
8. 3/4 cup of fish sauce 멸치액젓 (Korean anchovy sauce)
9. 3 Tbs of shrimp sauce 새우젓
10. 2 cups of sticky rice / 2 cups of water 찹쌀가루 / 물
11. 3/4 cups of minced garlic 마늘
12. 2 Tbs of minced ginger 생강

 

Preparation. 

1. Mix 2 cups of coarse salt in 10 cups of water in a big bowl, melt it well.  Cut cabbages in 4 pieces. You can cut second cuts all the way or just for the head like the third picture.
2. Put cabbages into the salted water and spread a little more coarse salt on the head which is the thickest part. Leave it for 8 hours. (After 4 hours, switch the top cabbage with the bottom cabbage. )
3. After 8 hours, take them out from the water, rinse them a couple of times and drain at least for 2 hours.
4. Mix 2 cups of sticky rice powder with 2 cups of water in a small pot and heat it to boil. When it starts boiling, turn it down the heat to low-medium heat and keep stir so it is not chunky.  Keep stirring for 3-4 minutes and remove it from the stove and leave it so it gets cool down.

 

Make. 

1. Slice white radish, mix red pepper powder. And mix all together with the sticky rice powder mix, fish sauce, sugar, shrimp sauce, garlic and ginger and add it into radish and pepper powder bowl.
2. Stuff the mix into the cabbage each leaf. Put more radish mix in the head because head parts are thicker.
3. Wrap the cabbage well with the last leaf(the outside leaf) and put it in the container. You should pack it on the top of the container. If your container is too big, then use fermentation weights.
4. Leave the container in a normal temperature area for 3 days. After 3 days, put the container in the refrigerator. 7 days later, you can enjoy!

Do Koreans eat Kimchi everyday?

 

Yes, we do!  We eat them for every meal!  Kimchi is the most important side dish for a meal.  The most famous Kimchi is cabbage Kimchi(배추김치), but there are lots of different Kimchis such as radish Kimchi(깍두기), water Kimchi(물김치), cucumber Kimchi(오이김치), mustard leaves Kimchi(갓김치).  There are over 200 kinds of Kimchi in Korea.

배추김치 Cabbage Kimchi

 

깍두기 Radish Kimchi

물김치 Water Kimchi

Sometimes, I just eat several kinds of Kimchi and rice without other side dishes for my meals.

We normally make Kimchi in the winter, because cabbages are good in the winter. We say this “김장하다(to make Kimchi)” or “김치를 담그다(to make Kimchi)”.  If there are 4 people in a family, they will buy about 40 cabbages when they make Kimchi.

It is not an easy process!  We cut cabbages in a half or in a quarter and put them into a salt water for 6 hours.  Then, take them out and drain them.  While the cabbages are drained, we make 김치 속(Kimchi seasoning) with radish, anchovy sauce, red pepper powder, garlic, ginger, green onion and a little bit of sugar.  And then put the seasoning into the cabbage for every leaf.

Most Korean families recently have a Kimchi refrigerator(김치 냉장고) which keeps the certain temperature and contains a lot of Kimchi.  Yes, we have two refrigerators.  Because Kimchi is fermenting, it STINKS!!!!!  So you don’t want to open your refrigerator too often if there is a jar of Kimchi in your refrigerator. 🙂

 

I usually make Kimchi fried rice(김치볶음밥).  It is very easy!  You can make it too!

1. Cut Kimchi in small pieces and fry 5 mins with a little bit of oil.

2. If you want, you can put onions or mushrooms and fry them with Kimchi.

3. Fry an egg on an another pan. ( I usually scramble my egg and mix with fried Kimchi because I don’t want to do dishes!!)

4. Put a bowl of rice and pour some Kimchi juice or Gochu-jang(red pepper sauce).

5. Fry them until they gets crispy!!!

김치볶음밥 Kimchi fried rice

 

Are you ready?