Last week I started a batch of sauerkraut. and, somehow thinking that too much was never enough, I also started a large batch of kimchi. Owen came over to help and we made more. I started with three heads of cabbage, with a total weight of between 9 and 10 pounds, and two large heads of Napa.
I had already started chopping cabbage for a batch of sauerkraut when Owen texted and inquired about making some pickles or ferments. This is sliced more thinly than my last batch of sauerkraut, but thicker than is traditional. I am okay with that. I have learned that I am not a sauerkraut purist, and that I not only like a variety of textures, I may prefer them. Nine pounds of cabbage was shredded to become sauerkraut.
By the time Owen arrived it had been salted and massaged and was resting. In this photo the cabbage has already begun to relax and release its brine. I always intend to buy more, larger, bowls, but why do so when pots work just as well?
Owen brought another 2 1/2 pounds of cabbage, some beets, and a couple of cucumbers. I had a generous bunch of carrots, but I only needed about half of them for my kimchi. We decided that Owen would make a beet and cabbage sauerkraut and a carrot, cabbage and cucumber kimchi. In all of the excitement of having company in the kitchen, I forgot to take pictures, so these are all after the process was finished.
I got the kimchi started. Here it is in a large Le Creuset pot. Although many kimchi's start by cutting whole Napa cabbage into lengthwise quarters, I prefer this batch to be chopped into large chunks. This particular batch sat out a couple of days before being moved into the refrigerator, where it resides now. The intention was to make a fairly young, sparkly, kimchi.
While I worked on the kimchi, Owen added the salted cabbage to the fermentation crock and pounded it down to make a good brine. Those three large cabbages filled my large, three gallon, fermentation crock a little over half full. That batch of sauerkraut is still in the basement fermenting away where it needs at least another week or two, possibly more as it has been cool and the basement cool as well.
Then we finished up Owen's ferments. The sauerkraut is pretty simple: beets, cabbage, salt. Owen did some spice testing and added celery seed, caraway seed and a bit of cumin seed as well. The beets turn the sauerkraut a lovely shade of pink. The kimchi is also red, but that is mostly from the Korean Chile powder. That one has carrots, regular cabbage, and cucumbers as well as other standard kimchi components, including fish sauce and salted shrimp. They both had excellent flavor when they left my house, and Owen tells me they are progressing nicely.
Because I had some extra cucumbers I also tried a short cucumber kimchi-style pickle, inspired by David Chang. That has turned into a softer condiment, something I can only think of as a kimchi-pickle-relish type of hybrid. But I don't really know anything about cucumber kimchi. I only know that mine is soft, has the consistency of pickle relish but the funky umami of kimchi, and was excellent on a hamburger for lunch yesterday.
