kimchi

This crock of kimchi had been fermenting for a good month (autumn is perfect for kimchi as it can ferment slowly without the risk of mold). There were two napa cabbages — outer leaves chopped, cores preserved — as well as shredded burdock, carrots and daikon, some wakame, the usual garlic-ginger-chili paste, some whole habaneros and a schot bonnet, and a whole daikon, cut in half to fit.

Here's what was left of a pepper: nothing but skin. The daikon was quite possibly one of the best pickles I've had. I'm very glad to have done this.

Here's a well-preserved half of a napa cabbage.

And the feat of getting it all in one (3 liter) jar.

tsukemono

A variety of recent tsukemono that I've made. Mostly inspired by Ikuko Hisamatsu's book, Quick & Easy Tsukemono.

• First, local ginger so fresh that it doesn't keep like cured ginger and also so fresh that it can be eaten on its own. I covered it in rice vinegar, added salt and lots of purple shiso. Two weeks later, it's pink, sweet and fragrant. The vinegar is amazing.
• Then Ninniku Hachimitsu-suke, or garlic preserved in honey. Just garlic and honey. A few weeks later the cloves are sweet yet still quite strong and the honey is delicious. Also, it's traditional cold remedy.
• Ninniku Miso-zuke: garlic in miso. Equal parts garlic and miso (homemade 1 year old miso) plus some mirin. The garlic loses its bite but gets very crisp after a week or two at room temperature (then store in the fridge). This is really amazing. And I'm guessing the miso will make great soup.
• And Gobo Miso-zuke, or burdock in miso. This was so active that I could hear the miso going. I quartered burdock and packed it with miso so the pieces didn't touch each other. Two weeks later the burdock is crisp, salty and mild.

kimchi jjigae

I recently made kimchi that was about equal parts burdock (gobō), carrot and napa cabbage. I also included dried shrimp for the first time. Like adding anchovies, it adds a je ne sais quoi to the kimchi: you don't notice the shrimp, but it improves the flavor.

I asked a friend how to make kimchi jjigae, a soup made with kimchi.

I sautéed some cubes of pork belly in sesame oil (my friend suggested bacon or spam, and I had belly in the freeezer with is just uncured, unsalted bacon) and took them out. I then added a good deal of kimchi and sautéed that. I added water, cooked for a bit and added the pork and some cubed tofu. My friend suggested dashida, which I didn't have, so I threw in a sqaure of kombu (kelp) and two anchovies. I also didn't have hot pepper paste so I squirted in a nice dose of sriracha. I let that cook on lowish until my brown rice (started while the pork was getting its first cooking) was done.

And it is delicious. The pork belly soaked up so much flavor. The broth is deep red, like a tomato sauce. And not having scallions, I topped it with pickled ramps.

tsukemono

A spread entirely of tsukemono. This recipe inspired the daikon pickles (turnips being out of season). I sliced a medium daikon into thin sliced and layered it with salt, strips of kelp soaked in brown rice ad ume vinegars and topped it with Japanese chili powder. I drizled some of the kelp soaking vinegar on top and pressed it in a tsukemono ki for about four hours. I then cut it into squares and held them together with skewers. Really quite wonderful: spicy from the chili as well as the daikon and just a bit salty. There was also the carrot-burdock pickle, a quick cucumber pickle (cucumber tossed with salt and dulse and pressed for four hours) and a lotus root-and-carrot pickle from Quick and Easy Tsukemono. This was my first time working with lotus root. It's like water chestnuts but nuttier and with a smoother texture. Wonderful.

pickling

Made two types of pickles recently, a brined burdock-and-carrot pickle and a tsukemono-style eggplant.

The burdock (gobō) and carrot pickle was a basic brined vegetable pickle with about two teaspoons of salt in a cup of water. (I usually refer to Wild Fermentation for basic brining techniques). I had about a quart of thinly sliced burdock and carrot with some shredded ginger and Korean chili pepper flakes. After 5 days it was tart but still very crunchy. The earthiness of the burdock permeates the carrots and the ginger brightens everything up.

Meanwhile, the eggplants were pressed in my tsukemono ki. I tossed a very long Chinese eggplants that was cut into one-inch lengths with a teaspoon-and-a-half of salt and then tossed them with dulse flakes, a type of seaweed that is relatively sweet. I pressed the eggplants for a good day, tossing them a few times throughout. They lose some moisture, obviously, and remain a little spongy but lose the bitterness of raw eggplants. I ate most of them snacking after dinner. Perfect for warm evenings and pilsener.

Gyuniku no Misozuke

Maybe I'm anæmic, maybe having red meat last night just had me craving more. Same project as last night: various vegetables in the fridge; went and bought a cut of meat. This time, a strip steak that looked to have lots of juicy fat (it was melt-in-your-mouth good, actually).

Instead of turning to Julia Child, I went to Hiroko Shimbo's The Japanese Kitchen. I marinated the trimmed steak in miso, sake and mirin (the steak protectively wrapped in cheesecloth, an interesting method). The fat I trimmed was rendered for a fried brown rice with onions, garlic and Japanese scallions (Shimbo called for shiso, which I grew last year and is otherwise impossible to find out here. Moreover, there were scallions in the vegetable bin). The steak was seared, sliced and served with a reduction of the marinade and a dash more of sake (Shimbo called for brandy, of which I have none).

That I served with Shimbo's a cold stir-fried carrot and burdock and my pickled asparagus.

• The steak was incredible. Even though it was only marinated for three hours, it had a wonderful aroma of miso and some sweetness from the mirin; it was just seared and rosy pink inside. Delicious.
• The fried rice was perfect. It was strong (from the beef fat) and could hold its own against the steak. The Japanese scallions, added at the end, livened it up.
• Pickled asparagus was a sharp contrast to the sweet of the miso and the fat of the steak and rice. And they are perfectly intact and flavorful, fermented ten (!) months ago.
• And then the burdock and carrot: both vegetables regained all of their crunch after cooling. The earthiness of the burdock and the sweetness of the carrot were a perfect match for the pickles and meat, something-in between the two.
  

This is excessively verbose. But it was that good.