Woke up this morning with a sharp mind and a fresh breath into the morning air. This post is a food post nothing major just a quick one for you guys.
Kimchi.
My favourite condiment curtesy of the Korean people and my older brother for introducing them to me. I am at the most of times prone to cooking and preparing food. I just hope I can be of great use to the community here.
Kind of jumbled in my thought and feel this post would be best helped with a photo of the end product.
The steps I took to get here required a long time of prep work.
First you have to cut Napa Cabbage or Chinese Cabbbage or Wombok into fourths. Then a liberal mount of salt are added in between each leaf. Do not be stingy with the salt. From here you place the cut and salted quarters into a container. Leaving them there to welt. Turning them every half hour.
At this stage I had started the process late in the night so I had to just leave them there till the morning. It is advisable to d the turning over and mixing till the leaves are soft that when you bend the they do not crack when bent.
After checking the leaves you will start to notice they are starting to get translucent, not a lot just enough for the leaves to be pliable.
You will then start with two table spoons of glutinous rice flour, two table spoons of brown sugar and two cups of water. Mix them together in a pot and heat till boiling, not too hot. Keep stirring or you will end up with blobs of gelatinous flour.
Oh of course you will start with the rice flour and water first, constant stirring. Then when the water is boiling you will then add the sugar. Sorry for the wrong order. I am not a cook book author.
Now the important part. Match sticks. That is carrot and daikon or white raddish. Then you will but spring onions or shallots into thin strips. I would say eight of them. Of course there is no such thing as a limit to how much you put since it is to your liking.
Now mince some garlic and ginger. I like the taste of garlic so I use a full head of garlic and make sure you mince a thumb sized ginger.
When the rice flour liquid is done and cooled. Mix them all together with the vegetables and fermented shrimp, fish sauce, the better the quality the better the taste.
Now for the most important part of the whole mix, CHILI!!! You want tons of them. But not too much or you will burn your insides. Add it into the mixture and voila you are almost there.
From here you just have to drain out the womboks and wash the saltiness from them.
Add the mixture in between the leaves of the wombok like what you did with the salt in the beginning. Make sure you cover them with a lot of the mixture. You will also need jars or some sort of containers that have been cleaned and sanitized. Yo do not want moulds or some sort of foreign invasion into your hard work.
You place all the mixed ingredients into the containers, for me I use glass jars from old pickles I have bought from the shops. Do not tighten them too hard, you want them to breath.
Another important thing is t make sure you pack the ingredients tightly into your container.
Leave them out but away from the sun so they can start to ferment. Those good bacteria needs to work their magic, do not be afraid to open the jars to keep pushing down the ingredients. The idea is to have the liquid covering the ingredients.
Now it is just a waiting game. The longer you leave them out the more acidic they will start to smell. You want that smell. I usually leave them out for about twenty four hours.
Give it a taste after twenty four hours. I tasted mine and was satisfied with the taste. Now to stop it from fermenting further you store them in the fridge.
