Friends!
Kimchi, as maybe you know, is a staple in any Korean meal and household. It's not just a food. It, in some ways, IS Korea. When Koreans travel abroad-they bring Kimchi.
Kimchi, while readily available in stores is still more often made by hand. There is an official Kimchi Making Time called Kimjang. The time varies for each family but usually happens in the fall in October or November. Family and extended family get together to make Kimchi. Lots of kimchi. Like-100 heads of kimchi. It's a two day affair. In the countryside, whole communities get together to make it.
Jamie and I like Kimchi. All through our time here we have received fresh homemade kimchi from one of my co-teachers, Ms. Kim. Once she gave us 7 different kinds of kimchi. Honestly, that was a bit much for us to handle but we enjoyed sampling the varieties and really appreciate how she always thought of us.
Since we got here, I've been nagging her to teach us how to make Kimchi. Finally, in our last month, we got our invite! She brought us to her house to meet her family and make kimchi! This trip was doubly exciting because we were making Kimchi AND meeting her family.
Ms Kim's son and husband were waiting to meet us at her house. Her son is graduating this week from college. He has been studying taekwondo and sports management. Her husband, whom I have heard so much about, took time out to visit with us and teach us how to make Kimchi. Her husband used to be a body builder and an engineer so we had lots of fun listening to his past travels and seeing his pictures. They also have a daughter but she is studying to get her PHD in Computer Science in Daejon. We didn't get to meet her.
We started with lunch. While Ms Kim brought out dish after dish of food, her husband made sure that our plates were never empty. I wasn't certain how we were going to make Kimchi on such full stomachs! We started with pajeon, odaeng, an onion/pear salad, and kimchi. And then moved on to chicken soup and rice. SO MUCH FOOD.
While Ms kim and her husband cleaned up and prepared the Kimchi making area, Jamie taught their son how to juggle.
Soon after, we suited up to make Kimchi.
Ms Kim and her husband prepped the Kimchi for us the day before. This involved quartering the heads of korean cabbage (the Korean name is baechu - we only used four heads of it), spreading large-grain salt onto each leaf of cabbage, and then soaking it in water for about 10 hours. After that, they rinsed the lettuce (2 or 3 times) and then let the lettuce alone in the water to drain off by itself-another 3 hours.
Here is the prepped cabbage:
Next we had to make the kimchi "filling". We started by grating one massive radish and a massive pear.
While jamie was doing that I was chopping up a ridiculous amount of green onion and mustard leaf. Then we ground up garlic and ginger together.
When it was all finished and combined we had to switch up to a miniature pool to fit everything and mix it all together.
After mixing the radish, pear, green onion, mustard leaf, garlic and ginger we needed to add all the flavor.
I didn't get a picture of everything we added, but here's some of the more interesting things.
That's pickled shrimp, anchovy paste, mae-shil (japanese plum juice concentrate), and red pepper powder (gochu garu).
Other things that got added: sugar, salt.
Then a lot of mixing.
Next, we had to rub the mix into each and every cabbage leaf. At this point we were pretty thankful that we only had 4 heads of cabbage to do!
After rubbing all that deliciousness into the cabbage, we placed it face up with the bottom two leaves wrapped around it like a package, into the tupperware containers.
And then more kimchi in more containers. And then more in more containers.
And then she packed it up and made us take it home!
Those packages, starting from the left are: Kim (seaweed), honey and tea (in the black bag), the next three are kimchi, and the last one is chicken soup, side dishes and oranges.
Wow!
So, what we learned about making kimchi.
If we had to do 100 heads of lettuce, it would not be as much fun.
I'm going to put in the ingredients and measurements. If you go it alone, let us know how it turns out for you.
Ingredients:
Korean Cabbage: 1 head
Anchovy sauce: 1/3 cup (a small dixie cup)
red pepper powder: 1 cup
Crushed Garlic: 2 spoons
Radish: 1/4 piece
plum juice: 1/4 cup
sugar: 1/4 cup
pickled shrimp: 1/3 cup
Good luck and be sure to wear some old clothes because it can get messy!
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