In the Korean Drama Boys Over flowers, Jun Pyo visits Jan Di’s home and ends up making a large batch of kimchi with her family. After actulaay making kimchi myself, I understand why it is made in a large batch. Making kimchi is not necessarily difficult, it just requires a lot of work.
Kimchi is a salted and fermented dish that is a korean stable. It is delicious. I actually like the cucumber kimchi, but for the sake of this drama I made the basic cabbage one.
Finding a Recipe/Ingredients
There is only only one place I would go to find this recipe: Maangchi. To me, her website is my go to for Korean cuisine. I was even refer to her by a Korean, so you know what she’s doing is good.
Anyways, So then I had to go shopping for the ingredients which includes many things that I haven’t cooked with: Buchu (Asian Chives), Minari (dropwort)–Which I call Asian celery, gochugaru (hot pepper flakes), saeujot (salted fermented shrimp).
I already had bought gochugaru because I knew that I would eventually make kimchi. As for the other ingredients, it was difficult to find. I eventually gave up on the saeujot (which I hope didn’t alter the flavor too much. And I ended up spending an embarrassing amount of time looking for buchu and minari. But I found them at last.
The Cooking, Waiting, and Mixing…
While Kimchi doesn’t actually entail a lot of cooking. I did have to cook the rice flour (which I didn’t realized that kimchi had some. I think it adds texture to the sauce).
The majority of the time, was salting the cabbage and flipping it. And chopping of the vegetables. While waiting for the cabbage to be prepared. I mixed the sauce together and voila. Once the waiting for the cabbage is complete, rinse and everything is complete. Sit out and let ferment for a day.
Reflections
Kimchi isn’t a difficult thing to make, but it is somewhat scary. To me, I don’t entirely understand the concept of fermentation. That part scares me. I have taken a food handler’s class and we’re told not to leave food out past a certain time point. The mentality needs to be thrown out in order to create this yummy delight.
I was so nervous to try my own kimchi. I guess I didn’t trust myself with the fermentation. But it turns out it taste yummy, perhaps a little too fishy for my liking. I think if I make this again, I will reduce the amount of fish sauce I add. Also I didn’t die.
I think I might actually make this again. I know that fermented foods are good for the gut and I treat my stomach so badly ( I love spicy foods).