1 head Napa
cabbage
A few radishes
1-2 carrots
1-2 leeks
4-5 cloves
garlic
5 hot chili
peppers
3 tbsp. fresh
grated gingerroot
➧Combine 4 cups
water and 4 tbsp. sea salt. Stir to
dissolve.
➧Coarsely chop
cabbage, slice radish, carrots and leeks.
➧Soak in brine for a few hours to overnight. Weight them down with a dish and cover with a
cloth.
➧Feel free to
add other vegetables to the brine, (snow peas, seaweeds, artichokes, etc.)
➧Prepare spice
paste by mincing the garlic, finely chopping the chili peppers and mix with
grated gingerroot. Kimchi can absorb a
lot of spice, so if you like it hot, add more.
➧Drain off
brine, reserving liquid. If the
vegetables are too salty, rinse, if not salty enough, add more. Mix spice paste into vegetables and stuff
into a clean quart size jar pressing down until brine rises. You may need to add more of the reserved
brine.
➧Cover the jar to keep the flies
away. Do not screw a cover on tightly as the fermentation process needs to breathe.
➧Ferment in your kitchen or other
warm place (not direct sunlight).
➧Taste
the Kimchi every day. Press the vegetables down daily to keep under the brine.
➧After about a week of fermentation when it
tastes good and ripe, move to refrigerator.
Side
note: Fruit Kimchi is prepared in the
same manner but instead of salt water brine, use the juice from a lemon. The
longer the fruit Kimchi ages, the more it develops an alcoholic flavor…be
careful.
Food for
thought:
KIMCHI: a spicy
Korean pickle created by fermentation. Check out Wild
Fermentation by Sandor
Ellix Katz who found that fermentation can be done with just about
anything. If you are into preparing your own homegrown, home processed food,
you won’t want to be without this excellent fundamental tutorial on your
bookshelf.
Kimchi recipes
call for soaking the cabbage and other vegetables in a salty brine for several
hours. It is similar to making homemade sauerkraut, except with more vegetables
and spices. It also takes less time to ferment, and therefore ready to eat
sooner.
The health
benefits of consuming fermented foods are incredible. Our ancestors used
techniques such as fermentation to store foods from harvest season to consume
later in the year, when gardening was not in season. Fermentation preserves
nutrients and breaks them down into more digestible forms. It is also high in
several vitamins as the vegetables go through the life cycle of
fermenting. Some ferments even function as antioxidants,
and everyone knows how good those are for our health.
Most of the
live cultured food you find in the grocery store, such as yogurt, and even
sauerkraut, have gone through a pasteurization process that heats the food to a
point where it kills the rewarding bacteria. If you want the live culture
fermented food you have to go to a specialty store or make them yourself. If
you have a garden and love to cook, get fermenting. You will love the benefits!
Fermentation
is nutritious and delicious.
Welcome to the 2018 A-Z Blogging
challenge. This will be my fourth year. Every year I take on the challenge
with hopes of disciplining myself to keep writing throughout the year as much,
if not more than just through the monthly challenge. (It certainly is a
challenge.) Some years are better than others. Some I
just lose track of time. This year I have decided to put my favorite
hobbies together. A recipe that is tried and true as well as some thoughtful
insight. Please note some of these recipes have been shared before,
however they have gone through years of testing and this is the perfected recipe. I
really hope one of my recipes or “Food for Thought” inspires you to do
something great. Enjoy the read and the photos, try the recipe,
share your thoughts or comments, and most of all, have FUN with the challenge
this month!
Cheers,
