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.

sardines & kimchi.

These are a new type of Japanese sardines that I found at Tran's World Market in Hadley (at $2.19/ea.). They're packed in ume vinegar, shoyu and some sugar. They're sweet, very clean tasting and quite rich.

I served them atop hot sweet brown rice and kimchi. The tartness of the kimchi and the sweetness of the sardines balance out perfectly. Serving both cold on hot rice makes for a meal that feels cooked yet is quite refreshing for a quick, summery lunch.

kimchi jjigae

Kimchi jjigae is the ultimate comfort food. It's richly flavorful, easy to make, can be made with all sorts of ingredients (initially, when looking into making it, I was amazed at the variety of recipes) as long as you have kimchi. For this jjigae — which tasted better on the second day and even better on the third — I sauteed 3 anchovies in some oil (from the jar, since I was finishing them off), added a good amount of kimchi (my very successful gobō-carrot-cabbage-dried shrip attempt), sautéed that and then added water, some kombu (kombu stock could have replaced water/kombu), cubes of tofu and some wonderful fresh shiitake that I picked up at my CSA. (Had I had pork belly on hand, I'd have added it before the kimchi.) I let that stew very slowly while I made rice. Towards the end I added coarsely chopped snap peas.

The snap peas stayed bright, green and crunchy. The anchovies disappeared — as they should — for that je ne sais quoi that anchovies add to everything (same effect that dried baby shrimp has on kimchi). Fresh (local!) shiitake are a real treat and they and the cubes of tofu take on the kimchi's tang (and this is best made with old kimchi). Very very satisfying, and the acidity of the kimchi us refreshing despite the heat from the chili flakes.

Garnish with dulse for the ultimate effect.

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.

kimchi!

In my last post I started making kimchi.

Here it is:

Eating a decent amount feels quite good. It's tart, quite spicy and just wonderful. The eggplant in the kimchi keeps its texture and form, as if raw, but it looses all color, taking on the pink of the pepper and the flavor of the brine. Straight-up delicious.

And here is David, a few days ago, trying it as a condiment for sautéed cucumber, zucchini and Japanese eggplant with rice:

mixed vegatable kimchi

This is a kimchi inspired by, — once again — by Sandor Katz's Wild Fermentation. This is a cross between baechu (cabbage, as in napa cabbage or Chinese cabbage) and a mixed-vegetable ferment.

Take one small head cabbage, sliced in ribbons, toss it with two thinly sliced carrots, a sliced onion and two of those thin, long eggplants, also sliced. (Radish is nice, I'm out):


Cover with a brine of 4 tbs sea salt to one quart water. Let rest a few hours. (Or overnight):


Make a paste of ginger (a decent knob), maybe 7 cloves garlic, a small onion, two anchovies and 1 ½ tbs Korean hot chili pepper (my past experience shows this to be a must — you can buy it by the pound in a Korean market):


Drain the vegetables. Taste for salt. Usually should be fine. Add the ginger-garlic paste:


Mix very well:


Pack into a crock:


Cover with a saucer or some other non-reactive object of the right diameter:


Place a heavy object (like a Ball jar filled with water) on the saucer, and cover with a cloth to allow air (but not bugs) to circulate:


Taste after a few days. Then each day after. Make sure the saucer is covered in 24 hours by liquid. If not, add brine.

Refrigerate when it's crispy and sour and all stained with chili pepper. This won't take long in the summer. If you have a cool place (or want to bury it in the ground, which I hear is traditional), it can age for months.

I'll post the results. (Nota bene: as this was a small head of cabbage, and I used a lot of garlic and ginger, this'll be more of a condiment than the last kimchi that I made that I devoured simply sautéed with rice.)

(see my first, second and third attempts at kimchi)

beautiful.

The kimchi that I started at the beginning of the week is done. It's out of the crock and into the jar; it's beautiful, and delicious, and better in many ways than the bok choy version that I made (which was good and I did finish 1+ quarts in a week and a half). This is just one napa cabbage, one fresh daikon and five stout, short carrots and a handful of scallions, all from local farmer's markets. The cabbage is coarsely chopped, the daikon and carrot cut into bâtonnets (large julienne), and then there's salt, lots of ginger and garlic, anchovies and Korean dried chillis -- the latter making a huge difference, a vast improvement on fresh Thai peppers that weren't strong enough (and didn't make the kimchi that rosy red color).

kimchi or pickle?

So I started with this:

And ended up with this:

Part pickle, part kimchi: I had some daikon left over from the last batch of kimchi, and a handful of Japanese cucumbers, so I thought to do a summery kimchi. Opps -- the cucumbers had gone off, and I was all prepared. I gathered a half dozen ripe lemon cukes from the garden. And there you have it. It's very tangy, I think from the sweetness of the cucumbers, and it has a nice bite. It does have pepper, a good handful of Thai peppers, but those won't turn it red. (I got some Korean pepper at Kim's Market in Hadley for a more traditional batch of kimchi with napa cabbage).


And then a few days ago I made spaghetti squash with parsley and kale from the garden and kale. That with some vegetarian bratwurst that weren't too bad. It was quite good, but even better the next next mixed with ricotta. Mnnnn.


Lastly, I've decided that natto and brown rice is even more satisfying than off-brand Cheerio's and raw milk for breakfast.

kimchi!

After a week, the the bok choy kimchi is done. it started filling a 5-quart bowl to the brim: a head of bok choy (the kind with light green stalks), carrots, half a huge daikon, garlic, ginger and thai chilis. After brining, I barely packed it into a 2.5 quart crock. It's now about six cups, and tastes incredible. It's more gingery than hot and crunchy and has a real nice kick to it. It could be one of the most delicious things that I've made in a while.

(the partially transparent triangle is daikon,)

I thought that I was done with the pickles for a bit but they had the most perfect pickling cucumbers that I have ever seen today at the farmer's market -- I bought almost three pounds. I also got some beautiful dill flowers, three heads of which made it into the pickles (the rest in a bottle or with other pickling folks at the market... I'm not sure why one would need such a huge bunch).

day 11

Day eleven and I sent the pickles to the fridge. The plump white cucumbers got soft -- one way too soft, mushy, yet with no signs of being bad per se. These had less salt than the first batch, so they're half-sour, and less garlicky (they tasted a bit better super garlicky). The small green and white ones are really good. Being wide at a larger size, the white ones get too seedy. If I use the lemon cukes in my garden they'll have to be very small, I think.

The kimchi is coming along -- slowly. It smells good, and is getting very gingery. The Thai chilis (fresh, not dried), aren't as hot as I'd have expected. They are seeded, but nonetheless I'd expect a bit more. The vegetables ones filled a five-quart bowl and now are 2/3 of a 2 quart crock.

day 8; summery dinner

I'm on day 9 of this last batch of pickles. They're going a little slower and are not as flavorful as I'd have expected at this point, but they're getting along. I thought that smaller would be quicker, but it's not.

I also started a batch of kimchi! LD thinks it smells really bad. And it's only been 48 hours. It tastes mild, and I think it's going to be really good. It's got bok choy, daikon, carrots, scallions and onions as well as garlic, ginger and thai chilis. LD says that these projects will be quarantined to the basement of the new apartment. I wanted the spare bedroom to be there for such purposes, heh.

I also bought some natto the other day. We'll see how that goes.

And tonight I made potato gnocchi with pesto tonight. It was really great: the pesto was relatively coarse, which was nice: bits of parmesan melted just right, chunks of pine nuts. All that with roasted purple cauliflower: just olive oil and salt was all it needed. It's nuttier than regular cauliflower. Crunchy, warm goodness.