Spicy Kimchi 매운 김치

Kimchi is one of the most popular dishes in Korea. You can actually see this on their every meal. It's a spicy food indeed but is so good. So I got this craziness about Korean dramas and got curious about their foods, to tell you honestly I even started learning Hangul. I talked to some friends about it and I found out that most of them eat kimchi. Then, I decided to make some Kimchi.

This recipe is inspired by Maangchi, I found her website while searching for the steps and ingredients I need to make spicy kimchi. Her site and videos are easy to follow plus she has lots of Korean food recipes and taste GOOD too! I love it actually! So are you ready to make your own Spicy kimchi? Well enjoy and 행복한 식사를!!!

Here's what we need:

• 10 pounds of cabbage (Baechu)
• Salt
• Sweet rice flour
• Sugar
• Water
• Garlic
• Ginger (optional)
• Onion
• Fish Sauce
• Hot pepper Flakes
• Squid (optional)
• Leek
• Green Onions
• Carrot
• Raddish

Steps to make Kimchi:

1. Cut the cabbage lengthwise into quarters and remove the cores. Chop it up into bite size pieces.

2. Soak the pieces of cabbage in cold water and put the soaked cabbage into a large basin. Sprinkle salt.         *Tip: 1 cup of salt will be used  for 10 pounds of napa cabbage.

3. Every 30 minutes, turn the cabbage over to salt evenly (total salting time will be one and a half hours.)

4. 1 1/2 hours later, rinse the cabbage in cold water 3 timer to clean thoroughly.

5. Drain the cabbage and set aside.

( you can eat the taste the cabbage if it's not too salty)

Make Porridge:

1. Put 3 cups of water and 1/2 cup of sweet rice flour (chapssal garu) in a pot and mix it well and bring to boil. Keep stirring until the porridge makes a bubble ( about 5 minutes).

2. Add 1/4 cup of sugar. Stir and cook for a few more minutes until it's translucent.

3. Cool it down.

Make Kimchi Paste:

1. Place the cold porridge into a large bowl. Now you will add all you ingredients one by one.

2. Add 1 cup of fish sauce, 2.5 cups of hot pepper flakes (depending on your taste), 1 cup of crushed garlic, 1-2 tbs of minced ginger, 1 cup of minced onion.

  *Tip: it is much easier to use a food processor or blender to mix the ingredients.

3. Wash and drain the salty squid. Chop it up and add it to kimchi.

    (this is optional and I skip this part. If you want to know how to do the salty squid you can go to this link: http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/ojingeojeot

4. Add 10 diagonally-sliced green onion, 2 cups amount of chopped leek, 2 cups of julienned korean radish and 1/4 cup of julienned carrot.

5. Mix all ingredients well and your kimchi paste is done.

Mix the cabbage with the kimchi paste!

1. Put the kimchi paste in a large basin and add all the cabbage. Mix it by hand.

     *Tip: If your basin is not large enough to mix all ingredients at once, do it bit by bit.

2. Put the kimchi into an air-tight sealed plastic container or glass jar.

You can eat it fresh after making or wait until it's fermented.

Tip:

* For the hot pepper paste, 1 cup - mild, 2 cups - spicy and 2.5 cups - pretty spicy. I like my kimchi pretty spicy it's more yummy!

I made this recipe twice and my family and I and some friends can finish this within 2-3 days. It's supposed to be a side dish not a snack that's why the next time I'll make my kimchi I'll seal it tight!

Here's my kimchi the first time, sorry for the quality I used my phone's camera.

Here is Maangchi's video on how to do it.

Enjoy your Kimchi. Cheers!