Kimchi (Cabbage)

Ingredients

Cabbage and salt

• 1 napa (large, Chinese) cabbage (1 ½-2 kg)
• 80 g coarse sea salt (do NOT use table salt - iodine kills fermentation)

Rice porridge

• 2 tablespoons sweet rice flour (mochiko / glutinous rice flour)
• 200 ml water
• 2 tablespoons caster sugar

Aromatic paste

• 1 onion (small, about 100 g)
• 1 Korean pear (small, or apple, about 150 g, peeled and cored)
• 8 garlic cloves
• 30 g fresh ginger
• 80 ml fish sauce
• 100 g gochugaru (Korean coarse red pepper flakes - NOT generic chilli flakes)
• 1 teaspoon salt

Vegetables

• 200 g daikon radish (julienned)
• 1 carrot (medium, julienned)
• 6 spring onions (sliced 4 cm long)
• 1 small bunch garlic chives (cut 4 cm long, optional)

Method

Stage 1 - Salt the cabbage

1. Quarter the cabbage lengthways; cut the core out of each wedge but leave the leaves attached at the base.
2. In a wide bowl or basin, dissolve 40 g salt in 1 litre water.
3. Soak the cabbage in this brine 30 minutes.
4. Lift the cabbage out; sprinkle the remaining 40 g salt between every leaf, focusing on the thick stem ends.
5. Lay the salted wedges in the basin; rest 4 hours, turning once at the 2-hour mark.
6. The leaves should wilt: bend a thick stem; if it bends without snapping, you're done.
7. Rinse thoroughly in 3 changes of cold water; drain in a colander cut-side-down 30 minutes.

Stage 2 - Rice porridge

1. Whisk the sweet rice flour with 200 ml water in a small pan.
2. Heat on low, whisking, 3-4 minutes until it thickens to a gluey transparent paste.
3. Off heat; stir in 2 tablespoons sugar; cool to room temperature.

Stage 3 - Paste

1. In a food processor, combine the onion, pear/apple, garlic, ginger, fish sauce.
2. Pulse to a coarse paste.
3. Transfer to a wide bowl; stir in the cooled rice porridge, gochugaru and salt.
4. Mix in the julienned daikon, carrot, spring onion and garlic chives.

Stage 4 - Stuff the cabbage

1. Wear food-prep gloves (gochugaru stains skin yellow).
2. Take a cabbage quarter; open the leaves one by one and rub the paste into each leaf, top to bottom.
3. Don't be shy - every leaf needs paste.
4. Fold the stuffed cabbage in on itself; nestle into a clean glass jar.
5. Repeat for the remaining quarters.

Stage 5 - Ferment

1. Press the kimchi down so it's submerged in its own brine.
2. Seal the jar loosely (or use a fermentation lid - gas pressure will build).
3. Ferment at room temperature 24-72 hours (longer in cold rooms; shorter in hot ones).
4. Taste daily - when it has the sour-fizzy edge you like, transfer to the fridge.

Stage 6 - Serve

1. Use straight from the jar; slice with clean scissors into bite-sized pieces.
2. The flavour deepens over weeks; old kimchi (a month+) is excellent in stews.