Disclaimer: 100% Laziness guaranteed #LOL
I'm not that patient when it comes to cooking, baking, or anything in the kitchen so, if you're one of those who loves speedy recipes yet super yummy and most of the time (?) healthy, make sure to stick around by following me here on Hive! :)
Kimchi, in Korean cuisine, is a traditional side dish of salted and fermented vegetables, such as napa cabbage and Korean radish, made with a widely varying selection of seasonings More info on wiki
Since it's sour, salty, a bit sweet, and spicy, Kimchi goes so well with all the dishes like rice, noodles, meat dishes, and all kind of main dishes. It balances well with all the greasy food as well. People also put kimchi as one of the ingredients in some dishes such as kimchi fried rice, kimchi soup, kimchi noodles & more. As well as the fact that this side dish is a superfood, I just can't resist to love Kimchi!
If you live somewhere far from the authentic Korean grocery stores (where you can get a HUGE jar of kimchi for $12), kimchi can actually cost an arm and a leg. We found a small jar (really small) for $8 here in a supermarket and I was like, helllll no, that's outrageous so I got an idea of making my own.
How hard could it be to make my own kimchi!?
Napa cabbage
One popular veggie for this Korean pickle and probably the most popular kind out there. I grabbed just one big one from a supermarket but you choose the sizes and how many you'd like. Wash well and cut it up just the good size for your liking.
Salt water (+ a secret!!)
After that, soak it in salt water for a few hours.
*Here's a thing, we didn't have any big container or bowl so I chose to use a ziplock bag instead. Turned out, it works probably better as I found it's so easy to drain out the water afterward and how easy to mix all the ingredients later on.
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Gochujang & Fish sauce (or soy sauce for vegan version)
Now after draining the salt water, some people wash the napa cabbage again a few times but really, not that necessary. Then, add gochujang paste (Korean red chili paste) and fish sauce. I know fish sauce smell quite bizarre so not all the people like it so, soy sauce works as good so, go ahead and use what suits you best.
Speaking of all the ratio, I honestly didn't follow any instruction but my heart <3 Just dump in some portion I think it would be delicious for your taste. In this case, I put in about 2 tablespoons of gochujang and 2 tablespoons of fish sauce.
Garlic & Ginger
Garlic and ginger are what will give the intense flavors and a bit of spice. Again, follow your heart how much you'd like these in your kimchi. I put quite a good amount of garlic but not much as ginger because I don't think I would like the ginger taste in my kimchi much.
Ideally, you should grate them but for my laziness, chopping them up nicely is just good enough :)
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Apple
No sugar for this recipe. We use this natural sweetness from apple! Sounds delicious, doesn't it? Same as garlic and ginger, grate or chop it up real good and dumb in just a good amount for your liking :)
Mix the ingredients around
See! How easy it is to use ziplock to make kimchi. I don't even need to get my hand dirty and no gloves needed either. Just gently flip it around and massage the bag to make sure the ingredients are well mixed.
Flip!
The first day, when there's not much of liquid yet, I flip it around every few hours just to make sure all the napa cabbage gets the liquid equally.
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The process of fermenting
DAY 1
DAY 2
DAY 3
After not even whole full 3 days yet, the cabbage's shrunk real good. A lot more liquid is coming out and holy, even stored in that zip lock bag, I can slightly smell it. Very strong smell and I can't wait till tonight to open the bag and try the kimchi with dinner!!