Quick is better than none.

[madbaker]

This week's Resolution Recipe: Quick Kimchi.

2 lbs cabbage
1 cup water
1/4 cup salt
1/3 c red pepper flakes (I used a combination of flakes and Rooster sauce)
1 Tbsp sugar
1/4 cup fish sauce
1/4 c garlic (I used... more.)
3-4 green onions
1/4 cup julienned carrot
I added: 1 Tbsp or so powdered ginger

Cut the cabbage in 1/4" strips 2-3" in length. Add water and salt, massaging the cabbage thoroughly. Let sit for 10-15 minutes.

Mix the remainder into a saucy paste. Wash and rinse the cabbage thoroughly, several times. Mix in the sauce. Bag up, press out the air, and let ferment on the counter at room temperature for 3 days.

What worked: It was good and I've been craving kimchi. This was an acceptable substitute.

What didn't: Next time I'll make a batch from 1 lb of cabbage - this was a lot. It wasn't zingy the way that properly fermented kimchi is.

Will I make it again? Certainly.

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Was that regular cabbage, or Chinese?

(And thanks for this: I too am craving kimchi, and a quick gateway version may be just the thing to get me going...)

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

I used Chinese cabbage, but the recipe notes that regular cabbage will work in this. It is after all a substitute for the real stuff.

Why such a hurry?

[albionwood.livejournal.com]

I thought my kimchi was pretty quick, it is usually pretty much done fermenting after about 7 or 8 days (in our 60F house). After 8 days I put it in the fridge, where it gets a little more sour during the time it takes me to consume it. Mine probably gets a head start because I keep re-using the brine (see below).

Powdered ginger??! Seriously? The chili flakes I can understand, at this time of year it's hard to get good fresh chilis. But spring ginger is available now...

Interesting that you salt it for only a few minutes. I follow Sandor Katz' instructions, brining the vegetables (Chinese cabbage, carrots, onions, and -if I can get good fresh ones - snow peas) in a 3% brine overnight, outside where it's cold, weighted down to keep it submerged in the brine. In the morning I pour off the liquid, which is now diluted by all the water that came out of the cabbage, so I add salt to bring it back to 3% before storing it in a double Ziplock in the fridge; this is then used to brine the next batch. I continuously re-use the brine as long as it smells good.

I make the garlic-ginger-chili paste in the food processor, using some reserved liquid from a previous batch of finished kimchi - it always throws off more liquid as it ferments - to make it soupy. Mix that with the vegetables (which are not rinsed, btw) and pack tightly into wide-mouth Mason jars, pressing it down as tightly as possible so the expressed liquid fills the spaces and covers the vegetables. A full plastic water bottle fits into the jar to weight down the kimchi and keep it submerged as it ferments.

This ferments really fast, I have never had any mold, and it just gets better for at least a couple of weeks. The longest I've kept any around is maybe a month. When I have a lot of it to use up, toasted cheese-and-kimchi sandwiches are fantastic.

Re: Why such a hurry?

[learnteach.livejournal.com]

What he said. Powdered Ginger is Wrong. Ground ginger...

I used a similar recipe, but didn't put enough chili in...for 2 lbs of Napa cabbage (Chaz, the leaf texture works better, same price) I used 2 jalapenos seeded and 1 TBspoon of chipotle powder, and it has hardly any bite...there's my problem right there!