Kimchi (김치)

Sup, y’all! Sorry for neglecting you. School is taking over my life for real. Also work and Army and my routine laziness and not being sure what to make next.

Anyway, this week is all about Kimchi! Kimchi is a traditional Korean staple and should probably just be named the national dish because I swear that it’s the only thing that people associate with Korea. Seriously, whenever I tell people I’m part Korean, the first thing they say to me is “Oh I love kimchi!” Like, cool story bro. But also I get offended if someone says they don’t like kimchi so there’s no pleasing me, I guess.

So kimchi has been around since at least 37 B.C. Ancient Koreans loved to ferment everything they could get their hands on, including wine, soybean paste, and vegetables. It makes sense, since refrigeration wasn’t a thing yet and we needed a way to keep food edible for a long as possible. Kimchi became even more popular in the Silla dynasty with the rise in Buddhism, which encouraged a vegetarian lifestyle. The process of making kimchi also allowed women in families to bond, since the process is fairly labor intensive (even more so during ancient times, since large clay pots holding the kimchi also had to be buried for optimal fermentation during the winter).

My mom doesn’t make kimchi very often, mostly because if you’re going to make it, you might as well make a bunch and she doesn’t have room in her fridge to keep it all. She usually gets some from my aunt or buys it from H-mart. But store-bought kimchi is getting expensive and Whitney and I go through kimchi like it’s going out of style, so she’s resumed her kimchi-making ways. For which I am very grateful because this means we get to bond over kimchi-making just like in the old days. Or something.

We started this bonding session with my mom doing the majority of the work before we even got there because of course she did.

To make the super traditional, quintessential baechu (배추) – or Napa cabbage – kimchi, you must first take all of your cabbage and cut it vertically into quarters. Then, submerge all your little cabbage babies in salty water for about 4-5 hours. You want your cabbage to maintain some of its crunchiness, but you also want to get rid of as much moisture as possible. Once your cabbage is optimally salted, you need to rinse it off, making sure you get between all the leaves to get rid of the salt and the dirt that’s inside. Put the cabbage aside and let it all drain for an hour or two.

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While your lettuce is salting, make your yangyum (양념). I wish I could tell you how to make it but my mom had already made it by the time we got there so I can’t. I mean, I know what she put in it, but I don’t know ratios because I wasn’t up in her business while she made it and I’ve only made kimchi on a small scale once before. Also I made mak (막) kimchi, which is when you cut up the cabbage into little pieces and then mix it up in a paste that is far less labor intensive than what you need for pogi (포기) kimchi, which is what we made this time.

I do know that for the yamyung, you start by making porridge with sweet rice (which is a super short grain) and then you add gochugaru, sugar, crushed garlic, green onions, anchovy sauce, and saeujeut (새우젓 – salted shrimp). My mom didn’t have saeujuet so she added salted belt fish instead. I can’t tell you how to make the porridge or how much of everything else to add but your yamyung should look something like this.

Once you’re ready to starting making your kimchi, grab some jars, bowls, and gloves and start painting yamyung onto your cabbage! Start from the inside and work your way out, then coat your kimchi in some more yamyung and fold it up and place it into a jar with the folded side up (so that you don’t lose the juices that your kimchi will eventually start to make as it ferments).

Keep doing that until you’re out of cabbage and yamyung. Clean off your jars, cover them with plastic wrap (to keep the smell from invading your entire refrigerator), and screw the top on tight! You can eat kimchi fresh, but it’s better to leave it out for a couple days before shoving it into the fridge. If leave your kimchi out, beware of exploding jars! Bacteria and fermentation make lots of pressure in warm conditions.

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To serve, take out a quarter at a time and slice into bit-size pieces. Even if you don’t want to eat the entire quarter of kimchi at one time (why wouldn’t you though), you can keep the cut up kimchi in a smaller jar or glass container for a little while. It’ll get older faster that way too. Don’t ask me why though. I have no idea.

So yeah. Kimchi! One day, I’ll make some mak kimchi on my own and will give you some better ratios and instructions, but this is more of a “I want to rub it in your face that I got to make kimchi with my cute mom be jealous” kind of post than anything.

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