Kimchi recipes at home

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

The national Korean dish, along with boiled rice, which is part of the daily habitual diet, is increasingly becoming part of our daily life, along with other dishes of Asian cuisine. Someone adores it, someone treats it with disgust, claiming that it smells bad. But in any case, this dish must be tried more than once in order to form a final opinion about it. Cooking Korean kimchi according to the recipes (with photos) below will help you better understand and appreciate this specific dish, which is the basis for many other Korean dishes.

What is kimchi?

This is the name of a spicy dish with a specific smell, usually made from Beijing cabbage in combination with other vegetables, as well as with a certain set of spices and spices.

In its homeland, in Korea, it can also be called chimchi, chimcha and kimchi. But all this is about the same product, which is used to prepare snacks, salads, soups and stews, while being an independent dish. Has its own kimchi recipealmost every family, adding to it something of their own, unique.

Easy recipe

One of the most accessible Korean kimchi recipes (with photo) looks like this. You will need the following ingredients:

• one large Chinese cabbage fork;
• 1.5 liters of drinking water;
• a small head of garlic;
• 3 tbsp. tablespoons hot ground pepper;
• one bulb;
• a bunch of green onions, preferably with large feathers;
• 1 tbsp spoonful of shrimp paste;
• 2 tbsp. tablespoons grated ginger (fresh);
• 1 teaspoon sugar;
• 3 tbsp. spoons of s alt, sea s alt is preferable.

Cabbage preparation

In different recipes of Korean kimchi from Beijing cabbage, you can find different types of cutting this vegetable. Cabbage is used whole, cut into pieces, slices, with whole leaves cut lengthwise, etc. How to decide which method is best?

In fact, it doesn’t matter at all and is rather a matter of taste or habit: some like whole leaves, in which you can then wrap side dishes, meat or rice, others prefer neat cuts. Most likely, you just need to try a few options to choose your kimchi recipe. Here are some ideas to get you started.

1. Cut the cabbage forks lengthwise into four parts and pour brine in this form.
2. Separate each leaf from the head (do not use too small) and smear with a mixture of spices, subsequently pouring brine.
3. Split the headin half and sour in this form. This option is the longest in time, because cabbage must be in brine for at least six days.
4. Cut the head of cabbage into four parts lengthwise and divide each into pieces 3-5 cm long. The most convenient option for holidays and feasts, as cutting is convenient to serve.

Brine pouring

Further, following the kimchi recipe, Chinese cabbage is s alted: s alt is dissolved in cold water and the prepared cuts are poured with this mixture. It is important that the liquid completely covers the vegetables, so if it is not enough, add more, according to the proportion indicated in the recipe.

In this form, cabbage should stand for at least a day, although in winter it can be longer. To make sure that it is ready for further cooking, we try to break a thick vein on a large sheet: it will not break with a crunch, but will simply bend gently, like rubber. After making sure of this, you can drain the brine, and rinse the entire cut under running water and put it on a wire rack so that it is a little glass.

How to make kimchi sauce?

Korean kimchi sauce preparation step by step according to the recipe (a photo of the Peking cabbage dish is in the article).

1. Chop onions into thin strips, and feathers into larger strips.
2. Chop the garlic with a press or mortar, mix with grated ginger, pepper and shrimp paste, which can be changed to fish sauce (it is used in Korea). Next, add sugar to the mixture and mix everything thoroughly, you canusing a blender.
3. Add a little paprika for flavor, if desired.

Fermentation process (fermentation)

Grate the cabbage with the resulting sauce, pack it tightly in a bowl (preferably plastic or glass) and leave in a cool place, pressing down with a yoke. For it, you can use, for example, a three-liter bottle of water. As usual, a kimchi recipe at home requires aging the product from three to five days: on hot days, fermentation is faster, and in winter you sometimes have to wait six days, especially if the cabbage is cut coarsely.

It is worth noting that this process will be accompanied by a not very pleasant smell of fermentation, so it is better to leave dishes with kimchi on the balcony or in the pantry - in the kitchen this can irritate the household. By the way, it is this specific smell that subsequently repels those who try this he althy dish for the first time. But if curiosity still wins, then pleasure and a slight shock from the taste of the snack are guaranteed. Then you can be sure - the kimchi cabbage recipe will firmly take its place in the cookbook of your favorite dishes. And here's how you can diversify it.

Kimchi with carrots and daikon (step by step with photo)

Korean kimchi recipe often uses daikon, a type of radish that gives the dish more spiciness and a boost of vitamins. If necessary, the vegetable can be exchanged for black radish or radish, which is more familiar to the Russian inhabitant - the taste will not suffer from this.

List of necessary ingredients for cooking cabbagedaikon kimchi recipe:

• two forks each of cabbage and daikon root;
• one each - onion, carrot and head of garlic;
• large bunch of green onions;
• 3 tbsp. spoons of sugar and hot pepper;
• 2 tbsp. tablespoons grated fresh ginger, fish sauce and rice flour;
• 1 tbsp a spoonful of paprika.

Cooking according to a photo recipe

This kimchi photo recipe walks you through the steps of making sauerkraut in Beijing: slicing, soaking in brine, preparing the spicy dressing, and sour cabbage itself.

You can also use ready-made chimchi mix, which is sold in Asian cuisine departments along with fish sauce, shrimp paste and other constant companions of Korean cuisine.

Can I make white cabbage kimchi?

Of course you can, although its taste and appearance will be somewhat different from the traditional version. Considering that Chinese cabbage for a kimchi recipe is not always available to all regions, you can try to make a Russian version of this dish. For cooking you will need:

• one head of cabbage, it is better to choose loose;
• 1 pack Korean seasoning;
• 1 teaspoon each of hot pepper and sugar;
• garlic head;
• 150 grams of sea s alt;
• two liters of filtered water.

How to cook?

For this kimchi recipe, it is better to take small heads of cabbage and cut them into four parts, without separating the leaves from the stalk. Place them in a saucepan, closer to each other, and pour s alt brine (water + s alt according to the recipe) for 18-20 hours. At the same time, in order for the leaves to evenly absorb the s alt, you should turn the pieces every four hours.

When the time required for s alting comes to an end, rinse the cabbage under running water and pour over kimchi sauce made from crushed garlic, sugar, pepper and Korean seasoning. Add 100 grams of water to the mixture, mix well. Cabbage, flavored with sauce, carefully tamp in a bowl, close the lid and store in a cool place. It will be ready to eat in four days.

Summer version of kimchi

Here's another Chinese cabbage kimchi recipe that uses fresh instead of dried peppers. Therefore, in the summer, if you suddenly want something spicy, it is quite possible to cook a Korean appetizer. Once again, it is worth recalling that it is better to take large forks of Beijing cabbage, as small ones fall apart and look unaesthetic when ready.

In order to prepare kimchi according to the recipe, with a photo for additional guidance, you should prepare the following products:

• 1.5 kg Chinese cabbage;
• 50-70 grams of garlic;
• three liters of purified water;
• three tbsp. spoons of s alt and fish sauce;
• 40 grams of vegetable oil;
• two hot chili peppers at least five cm long;
• two fleshy red bell peppers;
• 5 cm long ginger root;
• 1 tbsp tablespoon ground coriander seeds;
• large bunch of green onions.

Each fork of cabbagecut lengthwise, put in a deep container cut up and pour brine prepared from water and s alt, and you do not need to boil it - just stir until the crystals dissolve. Put a clean cloth on top and oppression to press the vegetable well. In a warm room, leave the cabbage to s alt for two days. Drain the liquid into the third, and carefully rub the cabbage with kimchi sauce, trying to flavor each leaf (it is better to do this with rubber gloves, as the mixture is quite hot). At the same time, we layer them with green onion feathers, which should be cut into strips of about five centimeters.

To prepare the sauce, you need to grind in a meat grinder all the peppers, previously peeled from seeds, ginger root and garlic. Mix the resulting mass with coriander and fish sauce, add a glass of water and oil. We tightly fold the resulting workpiece into a bowl and put it in a cool place for four days. It is advisable to turn the pieces upside down once a day and press them with your hands so that the juice stands out - then the fermentation process will proceed more evenly. If you want a faster result, then you can put a pot of kimchi in a warm kitchen - the process will take only two days, but the smell of fermentation will not be the most pleasant, this should be taken into account.

The presence of bell pepper in the recipe may "jump" some adherents of traditional cuisine, but don't experimental recipes adapted to Russian cuisine have a right to exist? Moreover, according to reviews, the recipereally good.

Cucumber Kimchi

Who said the kimchi recipe only uses cabbage? Fresh cucumbers with carrots make an appetizer no less tasty, but more festive. This type of kimchi even has its own name - "oi dogs". For cooking, it is better to take small fruits or cut them into two parts across. The list of required ingredients looks like this:

• eight cucumbers;
• one each - onion and carrot;
• 70 grams each of water and soy sauce;
• a small bunch of green onions;
• 4-6 cloves of garlic;
• one spoon of hot pepper;
• two art. spoons of s alt;
• one teaspoon of sugar.

Step by step cooking

First, wash the cucumbers, if they are large - cut across, and on each make two cuts crosswise so that the fruit is not cut completely by two centimeters. S alt thoroughly, especially inside, and leave for twenty minutes to s alt the vegetables.

Meanwhile prepare stuffing mixture. To do this, grate the carrots for Korean salads, cut the onion into thin rings, and green into pieces 5 cm long. Pass the garlic through a press or pound in a mortar. Mix all the cuts together, pour soy sauce mixed with water and sugar, add pepper and mix well the resulting spicy mass again.

Put the cucumbers in a colander or sieve and rinse them under running water, removing excess s alt. To givedrain a little water. Next, stuff the cucumbers with the prepared vegetable mixture, trying not to destroy their shape, then coat them with the remnants of the sharp mass on all sides, placing them in a plastic or glass container. Literally after four to six hours, oi dogs can be eaten, while the appetizer retains its fresh taste for several days - provided that it is stored in the refrigerator.

A little advice from the masters

If you analyze all the recipes, you will notice that the "red thread" through them is garlic, combined with hot peppers and green onions: these three ingredients are mandatory when preparing this snack. At the same time, it is recommended to purchase hot pepper also in an Asian shop. It's a special variety, not as hot as a chili, but it gives the dish a rich red color that is also a hallmark of the appetizer, along with the smell.