koko's corner

 Here's what you'll need to make the Easy Kimchi recipe. 

Cabbage, of course:  leeks, onions, carrots. radish, ginger, garlic, red pepper flakes,
fish sauce, rice flour and salt. The recipe does call for squid, but I typically don't use it 

First you need to cut the cabbage, I used napa cabbage, into quarters and remove the core. 

Chop the cabbage into bite sized pieces and soak in cold water,
then put the cabbage into a large bowl and add salt. 
The total salting time is about an hour and a half. 
Turn the cabbage every thirty minutes to make sure the cabbage is evenly salted. 

Drain and rinse the cabbage, at least, three times to clean it thoroughly. 

While the cabbage is salting start the porridge and add the sugar, 

fish sauce, 

hot pepper flakes, 

garlic and ginger. 

Chop, slice and dice the vegetables,

and add them to the porridge. 

Add the salted drained cabbage, stir stir, mix mix. 

Then add to your cool new kimchi pot. 

Omitting the squid. Here's the recipe I used.

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Kimchi, Easy (Makkimchi)

ethnic, vegetables

10 pounds napa cabbage
1 cup Salt
3 cups Water
1/2 cup sweet rice flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup fish sauce
2 1/2 cups hot red pepper flakes; or to taste
1 cup crushed garlic
1-2 tablespoons minced ginger
1 cup minced onion
10 green onions; diagionally sliced
2 cups leek; chopped
2 cups Korean radish; julienned
1/4 cup julienned carrot

Trim the discolored outer leaves of 10 pounds of napa cabbage.
Cut the cabbage lengthwise into quarters and remove the cores. Chop it up
into bite size pieces
Soak the pieces of cabbage in cold water and put the soaked cabbage into a
large basin. Sprinkle with salt.
*tip: 1 cup of salt will be used for 10 pounds of napa cabbage
Every 30 minutes, turn the cabbage over to salt evenly (total salting time
will be 1½ hours).
1½ hours later, rinse the cabbage in cold water 3 times to clean it
thoroughly
Drain the cabbage and set aside.
Make porridge:
Put 3 cups of water and ½ cup sweet rice flour (chapssal garu) in a pot and
mix it well and bring to a boil. Keep stirring until the porridge makes
bubbles (about 5 minutes).
Add ¼ cup sugar. Stir and cook for a few more mintues until it's
translucent. Cool it down
Place the cold porridge into a large bowl

Make kimchi paste:
.Add 1 cup of fish sauce, 2.5 cups of hot pepper flakes (depending on your
taste), 1 cup of crushed garlic, 1-2 tbs of minced ginger, 1 cup amount of
minced onion.
*tip: much easier to use a food processor.
Add 10 diagonally-sliced green onions, 2 cups amount of chopped leek, 2
cups of julienned Korean radish, and ¼ cup of julienned carrot.
Mix all ingredients well and your kimchi paste is done.
Put the kimchi paste in a large basin with the porridge and add all the
cabbage. Mix it by hand.

Put the kimchi into an air-tight sealed plastic container or glass jar.You
can eat it fresh right after making or wait until it's fermented.

I usually put all my kimchi in the fridge except for a little bit in a
small container. I like fresh kimchi, so this way the kimchi in the fridge
ferments slowly and stays fresh, while the smaller container ferments
faster and gets sour. I use this sour kimchi for making things like kimchi
chigae where sour kimchi is better. Then, when the small container is
empty, I fill it up again with kimchi from the big container. It takes a
little management, but experiment and you'll get the hang of it!
How do you know it's fermented or not?
One or 2 days after, open the lid of the Kimchi container. You may see some
bubbles with lots of liquids, or maybe sour smells. That means it's
already being fermented.

Notes: http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/easy-kimchi

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And that's that