As long as I have been able to remember, my mother has loved kimchee. With all of my pickling and canning adventures recently it seemed like a good idea to at least attempt to make some kimchee for mom.
I made sure ahead of time to stock up on mason jars - I'd run out after the roasted red peppers, pickled red cabbage, and
pickled Vietnamese vegetables.
I picked out a few kimchee recipes that sounded do-able and picked
this one as my final choice.
Begin with a nice head of Napa cabbage.
Remove the outer leaves.
Cut it into quarters.
The next part of the instructions says to remove the tough inner core. There are two ways you can go about this. First the way you can do this if you really aren't sure where or what the tough inner core is for sure.
Slice you quarter piece as is.
Once it is sliced you will see the difference between the cabbage and the core and can separate it manually.
The second way is still pretty good for those who aren't 100% sure but would like to try to remove the core a bit faster. Diagonally cut across the butt of the cabbage.
When I say diagonally I really mean it. In addition to the general angle you are using from top to bottom, cut at a 45 degree angle.
By now you should have a nice pile of shredded cabbage.
I chose to separate mine into two colanders so that I could make sure that I wasn't going to end up losing a bunch of cabbage into the sink while I cleaned it.
I put all the cabbage into a large bowl and salted it in portions. I'd salt it, mix the cabbage up, salt it, and continued this general way until I used up all of the salt called for.
Here is what the cabbage looked like after I let it sit for two hours and wilt.
While I waited for things to wit I prepared the "sauce" I would need.
Because it's my mother I made sure to use "the good" hot chili paste.
Remembering that some of the other recipes called for daikon I bought another piece. Then once I was putting things together realized that my chosen recipe didn't include the use of daikon. I turned to
my second choice recipe to make sure I didn't over-do it with the daikon.
Once everything was ready I thoroughly rinsed the cabbage and packed a mason jar as tight as I dare.
My addition of the daikon made it impossible for the sauce to mix in properly so I poured it back into a bowl.
Added some more sriracha.
And then managed to be able to pack it all back into the jar.
I hope this turns out delicious and that my mother loves it.
