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WARNING: Slow Blogging continues

Heading for a family party out of town -- taking leave of the blog for the next 24+ hours.  I'm sure you'll manage on your own without me!

Happy Weekend -- blogging resumes late tomorrow.

 

  12:01:00 PM    comment []

J

 

Kim Chee Day

 

Since my dad was coming to visit for a couple of days, I made some kim chee (or kim chi, whatever).  Dad and I are the biggest consumers in the family of this Korean condiment.  I could eat it every day with dinner.  I don’t, though; the rest of my immediate family would get pretty weird about it.  I have little jags where I crave the stuff, have to have it.  I’ll either break down and buy a jar or make some.  Since Dad likes it, I can make a full batch and split it with him.  Mmm-mmm.

 

Some of you are wrinkling your nose about kim chee; I can hear you asking yourselves, Why does she like that stuff?  There’s no explaining why I like it.  It’s salty – aren’t pickles and olives and capers salty?  Nobody actually gorges on those kinds of foods; they use them as condiments, little accents to another food or a meal.  Same with kim chee; it’s just a little extra kick in the pants when you need it.

 

No, it’s not rotten cabbage.  Think of it as Korean sauerkraut.  Okay, maybe one wouldn’t eat as much of it in a single sitting as they might of doing with sauerkraut.  But the most common kim chee is just a pickled cabbage, like sauerkraut.

 

Isn't it spicy?  Well, it can be made to taste.  Some people like it quite spicy (me in that group) and some only piquantly warm.  It’s a highly individualized condiment. 

 

Yesterday I cleaned and chopped up the cabbage and onions that go into this condiment.  I salted this mixture and set it off to brine overnight.  This morning, I realized I only did part of the job; I’d forgotten some other key ingredients.  Turnips, daikon radish, ginger and LOTS of garlic still had to be peeled and sliced.  Nuts, I must have been yakking too much with my mom while starting the batch that I forgot this much!  This morning I peeled and sliced and chopped the missing goodies, brined them, and will add them to the rest of the kim chee in the morning. 

 

When I told my father I’d started a batch of kim chee for us to split, he chuckled a little.  He told me he remembered as a child in Honolulu that women would hang the cabbage from clothes lines to dry.

 

What??

 

Yup, they hung the cabbage on the line.

 

You mean, a whole head of cabbage hung up?  Or each individual leaf pinned up?

 

Each leaf.  Pinned.

 

Hmm.

 

This was the first time my father ever told me about kim chee in relationship to his childhood.  I knew he’d eaten it as a child in Hawaii, but never really thought about the context of being part-Asian in Hawaii and kim chee making and eating. 

 

I laughed after he shared this.  I told him that the neighbors would surely think I’d lost it, gone completely over the edge, if I hung cabbage leaves on my clothesline.

 

Dad said, Well, if the neighbors were all doing it too, hanging up their cabbage, they wouldn’t be laughing.

 

Yeah, I guess you have a point there.

 

Here’s to hoping I’ll find myself in a world where nobody laughs at the cabbage on the line.  Where no one minds me eating kim chee with every meal, and no one pays any attention to the extra jars of kim chee in the fridge.

 

---

 

My Dad’s Kim chee (Kim chi)

 

2 lbs. napa cabbage

½ cup salt (Do not used iodized; use kosher or pickling salt.*)

1 quart water

1-1/2 tablespoons hot red peppers

1 clove garlic, minced

1 teaspoon fresh ginger, minced

1 tablespoon sugar

2 scallions chopped (optional)

 

Wash cabbage and cut into 1-1/2 inch pieces.  Sprinkle with salt.  Add water and let stand overnight; push cabbage under water. You may wish to use a plate weighted with a full pop bottle or what have you to set on top of the cabbage to keep it submerged.  After a minimum 8 hours of soaking, drain and rinse cabbage. (Cabbage will taste of salt, but should not be “salty” if rinsed well.)  Squeeze cabbage gently to remove excess water.

 

Make a paste of the rest of ingredients and rub into cabbage slices.  Pack into sterile quart jar and cover.

 

Place jar in a plastic bag to prevent odors from permeating other foods; refrigerate.  Kim chee will ripen over 3 to 5 days and be ready to eat. (Alternately: stretch a piece of Saran® Wrap across mouth of jar after filling, then screw on lid.  Saran® is impermeable, won’t leak smells.)

 

*Use slightly less salt if using pickling salt; its finer texture makes it more concentrated than kosher salt.

 

NOTE:  For really easy Kim Chee, buy Noh’s Kim Chee mix.  Much easier for first time kim chee makers.  Experiment with the vegetables, adding cucumbers or turnips, daikon radish, ginger -- any combination.

 

  1:21:49 AM    comment []