Cole asked about my kimchi process.
As it happens I was thinking about expanding my kimchi horizons. I've made several batches of my basic kimchi for a while now, but I know that there are many techniques and many variations and thought it would be interesting to try something different. I decided to make the kimchi the way I have been making it, using my slightly modified version of David Chang's kimchi recipe in Momofuku as a control, and make two other batches of kimchi at the same time. I'm not sure that any one style of kimchi is better, or even perhaps more "authentic" than another. Times change, tastes change, what is authentic to me and probably to most people is what their grandmother made. Of course my grandmother never made kimchi. I suppose what is important is what I like. I like what I have been making, but I'll never know why, or even if I am missing something, unless I try something else. I decided to make another version of a fairly traditional baechu or napa cabbage kimchi and something that was entirely different.
Kimchi #1:
Above are the ingredients for David Chang's paechu kimchi. This recipe calls for a small to medium napa cabbage and I could only find a very small one last week, so there is also a wedge from a jumbo cabbage. Along with the cabbage, the recipe calls for scallions, carrots, ginger and garlic, in fairly small quantities, as well as sugar, salt, soy sauce, fish sauce, salted fermented shrimp, and gochugaru, or ground red chile.
Kimchi #2
The second recipe I chose is from Koreatown by Deuki Hong and Matt Rodebard. Although you can't tell from this photo, this recipe makes a much larger batch of kimchi, starting out with twice the amount of napa cabbage as in the first recipe. There are other differences as well. This recipe calls for scallion greens (although I show the entire scallion here), small quantities of garlic and ginger, onion, daikon radish, and Asian pear. There is no soy sauce or fish sauce, only salted fermented shrimp. This recipe also calls for a paste made from the sweet rice flour and water. The wrong version of gochugaru is pictured. The recipe actually specifies the coarser grind, which I do have, but I neglected to change out the jar when gathering ingredients for the photo.
Kimchi #3
And then I decided to go a little wild. The third kimchi is from Aki Kamazowa and Alexander Talbot's book Ideas in Food. After reading this recipe I learned that fermented pickles are deemed ready when they reach a ph of 3.5, which also happens to be the ph at which red cabbage changes color and becomes a bright reddish purple. Besides, this version just sounded interesting and I am intrigued. Substitute the red cabbage for the napa cabbage. There is a lot more ginger and a lot more garlic in this recipe, as well as six bosc pears and a rather large amount of daikon radish. The recipe actually called for Korean radish, but I couldn't find one. The flavor is different. I think of Korean radish as being a bit more peppery than daikon, which would have been interesting with the sweetness of the red cabbage and the pears. Watercress is also included but I forgot to put it in the photo. This recipe calls for shrimp paste rather than fermented shrimp, and I used gochugaru rather than the combination of cayenne and crushed red pepper called for in the recipe.
All three recipes call for brining the cabbage for at least six and up to eighteen hours. Chang brines his cabbage dry in the refrigerator, after massaging the cabbage with salt and sugar. In the other two versions of kimchi, the cabbage was brined in a solution of water and salt at room temperature. Above are all three batches of cabbage, ready to begin brining.
From here on out the recipes differ and I will post about them separately. As I write this I have no idea how they will turn out, or what I will think. It should be fun.
