Kimchi Recipes

Everyone is crazy for the probiotic foods lately, and for a good reason; let's face it - we do not get enough of enzymes in our day to day foods. Fermented foods have a long tradition of helping digestion and immune system, and kimchi is one of these foods. Kimchi Recipes vary from blog to blog and from family tradition to family tradition. The Kimchi recipes that I follow are not as strict as the original Korean kimchi, partly because it is difficult to find authentic ingredients, and partly because it is difficult for an average American to tolerate the spiciness of the traditional Kimchi recipes.

But here's one of the Kimchi recipes that I use regularly, and I dubbed it "Not so hot Kimchi". My family loves it, even the ones who don't like spicy foods or the "spoiled" foods, ha, ha. Well, here it is: Kimchi recipes that everyone loves.

1. Get yourself two heads of Napa cabbage at the store. If they don't have Napa, get a head of regular cabbage  and a bunch of Bok Choy, or worst case scenario, two heads of regular cabbage.

2. Get a pound of carrots, a two inch stick of ginger, a head of garlic, and a jar of dry red pepper flakes. I assume at this point that you have sea salt or kosher salt at home, if not, get that too.

3. Chop cabbage coarsely and put into a large bowl. Sprinkle with about two tablespoons of salt, and squeeze the cabbage shreds with your hands so that cabbage starts giving juice. Let it sit for about twenty minutes, covered with a kitchen towel.

4. In the mean time, chop and shred the remaining ingredients. Sprinkle well with red pepper flakes (to your liking!)

5. Mix all the stuff together and start stuffing a glass or enameled jar with the mixture, pressing with our fist, so that juice is covering the vegetables.

I often add greens, like collard greens, or bok choy, and other vegetables, like squash to the mixture, all is good.

6. Once the jar is full, find something that would hold the vegetables down in this Kimchi recipe, while keeping the juice above them. I use a 750ml wine bottle filled with water. It fits perfectly into this two quart jar.

7. Keep it on the counter for two or three days until you see nice bubbling going on, which would mean that your kimchi is fermenting.

8. At this point put the jar into the fridge and enjoy until it's all gone. Then, make the new batch.

Fermented cabbage

Cabbage is a perfect food. It is cancer-fighting, high in vitamins and minerals and also is low in calories. So if you are on a health kick and/or trying to lose weight, cabbage is a food for you. No wonder there is a cabbage soup diet; but cabbage in the soup is boiled, so it lost a lot of it's health benefits. Enter fermented cabbage. It is raw cabbage for all intents and purposes, but it also contains "good" bacteria, the result of fermentation, so it is sort of a double-whammy. With no further delay, let's start on the recipe.

Get yourself a large head of cabbage or two of the medium ones and shred them into a large bowl. Get a carrot or two and shred into the same bowl:

Now, start squeezing and crushing cabbage inside the bowl with your hands so it gives juice. Sprinkle salt while you are doing it. I do not have set amount of salt to use, but usually I turn the whole bowl five times and sprinkle salt around the whole surface three times. The point here is to give it enough of salt but not overdo it. If you add too much salt fermentation process will halter; we do not want that, although you will end up with some nice coleslaw, but it will not be fermented. You can taste the cabbage while you are crushing it to make sure it is just a bit salty.

Now, get yourself some glass container. I use a leftover two quart jar from pickles. Start packing cabbage into the jar with your fist. You will feel the amount of packing pressure needed: the juice should cover each layer, maybe just a little bit. Once you run out of cabbage or the jar is full, put some weight on top of the cabbage to keep it submerged under it's own juice. I use a bottle of wine for that:

And this is it. Keep it on the counter top for five to seven days. After a couple of days the juice should start foaming (if you did not overdo on the salt), and then foaming will subside. That's the time to repack cabbage into the smaller containers and put them in the fridge.