Kimchi

18/09/2020 by guseraph Leave a comment

Not all cuisines have staple accoutrements but those that do have them because they found something so great that it had to be eaten with every single meal. Mexicans have salsa, Peruvians have aji, and Koreans have kimchi. It’s the topic of heated debates, mostly because of its overpowering taste and smell. It’s garlicky, funky, stinky, spicy, and delicious. It can be made with pretty much any vegetable but for the sake of simplicity we’ll only talk about the OG cabbage version here. There’s rumors that it is banned from the dorms at the Culinary Institute of America, also that it is what saved Koreans from the avian flu when the outbreak happened all across Asia. Apparently, the lactic acid bacteria and fermentation metabolites in kimchi inhibit the growth of influenza virus, so say a bunch of sources (PRN, BBC, WSJ). Bottom line, it’s stinky but super good for you.

Ingredients
– 1 Head napa cabbage (~2.5kg / ~5lbs)
– 2 cups coarse sea salt
– 4 scallions
– 1 sheet dashima (about the size of your hand)
– 1 tbsp glutinous rice powder
– 2/3 cup gochugaru (Korean red chili pepper flakes)
– 1/4 cup saeujeot (salted fermented baby shrimp)
– 2 fresh oysters (optional)
– 3 tbsp fish sauce
– 5 tbsp fermented ginger and garlic
– Small handful scallions, green onion and/or chives

Cut the cabbage lengthwise into 4 pieces. In a large bowl dissolve a cup of salt in water and bathe the cabbage, making sure you get water in all the nooks and crannies. Take turns with each quarter if the bowl isn’t big enough. Shake off the excess water and generously sprinkle salt between each leaf, concentrating on getting the salt in the thick white parts of the cabbage. This will soften the cabbage to make it malleable. Once salted, submerge in the salt water for 5 to 8 hours. Rotate the pieces if needed so they all spend time underwater. Once the cabbage leaves are easily bendable, rinse it thoroughly.

Boil the sheet of dashima in a cup of water, let cool and add the rice powder. Bring back up to a simmer to make a thin paste. Mix in the ginger+garlic paste, the gochugaru, saeujeot, fish sauce, and diagonal-cut scallions in the paste. Let sit for a few minutes to get the pepper flakes re hydrated. It should have a thick but easily spreadable consistency. Add water if necessary. If adding the fresh oysters, do this process in a blender and add the scallions after it’s blended.

Cut enough off the bottom part of the cabbage for the leaves to still be held on together. Spread the paste evenly between all the leaves. When done, fold the quarters nicely wrapping them with the outermost leaf and place in the container you’ll use to ferment it in. You can definitely just eat it as is but if you want truly magical kimchi, let it sit in room temperature for two to 3 days. Weather, temperature, and how ripe you like your kimchi will determine how long you leave it out. Just taste it as you go.

Lacto-Fermented Ginger and Garlic

31/08/2020 by guseraph 6 Comments

I finally get it, why all the recipes online have pages and pages of a backstory behind the dish. It’s an excuse to write, and it feels good to troll you into reading my thoughts before giving you my delicious knowledge nuggets.

Lacto-fermentation is one of the easiest things in the world. Just put some salt on whatever you want to keep for a long time and let it do its magic. It has something to do with lactobacillus bacteria converting sugars from fruits and vegetables into lactic acid, which is a natural preservative. The salt is used because the lactobacillus bacteria can live in a salty environment while everything else dies a salty death. Food that has been fermented this way can stay edible for a very long time. My aunt once gave me some five year old kimchi that was actually really good. It tasted very different from any kimchi I had (obviously) but it was still delicious and very much edible.

This ginger and garlic mixture is so delicious and versatile that I can’t recommend it enough, so make a lot of it.

Ingredients
– Ginger (peeled)
– Garlic (peeled)
– Non-iodized salt

Rough chop up ginger and garlic into small pieces. The size of the chop only matters if you’re not going to process it at the end. In that case, chop it to the size you want.
The ratio of ginger to garlic also doesn’t matter. It’s up to your personal taste but I recommend a 50/50 split.
Weigh the mixture and calculate 2%. Add that in salt. If you have one of those sea salts that feel like wet sand, add a tiny bit more. How much more? Doesn’t matter, just a tiny bit more.
Mix it well and let it sit in a corner of your kitchen for a week or two. Once it stops producing so much gas (burp it), pulverize it in the food processor if you so desire and keep it in the fridge. It should last for months, maybe even past a year but the jars I make don’t make it that far, and neither will yours.

Garlic Honey

30/08/2020 by guseraph 2 Comments

Garlic fermented in honey has been one of those things that has stuck with me since I discovered it from Brad Leone’s many fermentation recipes. It goes so well with Korean food that I have had to make jar after jar of it. Korean food uses a lot of sugar and a lot of garlic, most times together, so why not? It’s as easy as peeling some garlic, sticking it in a jar, and covering it in your favorite honey.

A few points of interest. Not all honey is created equal. There’s stuff that comes from China that is tainted with different syrups and is not really honey, so shop local. After making a few different batches of this stuff, I have realized you get a different end product depending on if you crush your garlic or not. I don’t mean completely smashing the garlic, just a light crush to activate that allicin. When you do crush it, the garlic turns into this gummy-candy textured nugget and when you leave it intact, it’s this crunchy clove of sweet garlic.

My taste buds are not powerful enough to tell you the difference between different types of garlic but I’m sure there is something to play with there. Most of the jars I have made have just been the regular garlic that comes from the supermarket, except for the one I made with elephant garlic. It’s definitely milder, but that’s as far as I can describe it.

The longer it goes, the better. I have a three year old jar that has turned the honey into this black liquid that tastes like fermented black garlic (figures, I know). When you first submerge the garlic in honey, it’ll take about a week or two to release a bunch of garlicky gases that will stink up your kitchen in the best way possible. Hence, why the lid should not be closed all the way unless you want to “burp it” (open it every day). I would say the optimal time to let it sit before consuming it is at least two months. It’s a long time to wait, but that’s just my suggestion. I know I have had a few spoonfuls of honey at different times of fermentation.

Ingredients:
– Garlic (peeled)
– Honey

Place peeled garlic in jar, cover in honey. Done. If you so desire, and I recommend it, crush the garlic cloves slightly with the flat part of a knife before placing in jar.