Kimchi (I)

Feel like eating kimchi yesterday then found a simple kimchi recipe online. It called for Chinese cabbage, spring onion, Korean chili powder, kimchi sauce, sea salt, sugar, garlic and ginger. The chili powder is only available in big packet about 450gm give me a good excuse to make more kimchi in the future!

I followed the step suggested online but did not follow the amount of chili powder, salt and sugar. I added an extra heap tablespoon of chili powder as I noticed that the colour is not as red as the kimchi I ate at the Korean restaurant. I also cheated on the kimchi sauce. Since I could not find any kimchi sauce at Asian Supermarket I substituted it with Japanese fish powder to give kimchi some fishy taste. I was thinking to use Thai fish sauce but thought that it might be too salty considering the cabbage had been marinated with salt for 4 hours!

I also made some Kakk Du Gi it tastes a bit too salty now, I am hoping that it will taste better 3 days later. Btw, Kakk Du Gi is similar to kimchi but used radish instead of Chinese cabbage. The ingredients and process are easy but need to set aside the kimchi for few days before I can eat them!

Ingredients:
500g Chinese Cabbage (1 x large size)
1/2 cup Salt
3-4 stalk Green Shallots, chopped
4-5 cloves Garlic, finely chopped
1 slice Ginger (about 1cm), finely chopped
3-4 tbsp Sugar
2 tbsp Fish Sauce
1/2 cup Korean Chilli Powder

Methods:

1. Cut cabbage into 4 portions, lengthwise. Then, cut into about 2" pieces.
2. Sprinkle salt over the cabbage, mix well. Place a heavy item on top of it, and set aside for 45 minutes.
3. Rinse cabbage 2 times, squeeze all liquid out.
4. Add in green shallot, garlic, ginger, sugar, fish sauce and chilli powder. Mix with hand till all cabbage is coated with the sauce.
5. Transfer to container with a lid.
6. Set aside in room temperature for 3 days to speed up the fermentation process, then keep in the fridge. Will be ready in a week.