Kimchi making

It's been a grey and dull day, with nothing particularly photogenic crossing my path.

Spent the evening watching the Eurovision final, and having decided to make kimchi (Korean pickled cabbage) and kkaktugi (Korean radish pickle) earlier I ended up running out of time and spent a chunk of the evening in a state of severe kimchi-Eurovision tension!

So I ended up mixing the cabbage and radish with the other ingredients and packing the finished stuff into containers while watching the TV, which got a little surreal at times.

Anyway, I contemplated blipping a picture of the radishes before pickling as they are the giant white radishes (mooli) about the size of your forearm. But the photo turned out to be a little blurry, so instead here's a photo of the finished cabbage kimchi prior to packing.

For the uninitiated but interested, kimchi is a fermented pickle, ie no vinegar. You salt the veg, then mix it with a paste made of various ingredients, of which the main one is Korean hot pepper flakes, but in this case also grated carrot, garlic, spring onions and fish sauce. The finished mix is packed into containers and left at room temperature for a few days to start the fermentation, which drops the pH and pickles it (similar to sauerkraut). You then bung it in the fridge where it continues to ferment but at a slower rate, and it lasts indefinitely while becoming more sour over time. If it gets too sour to eat as a side dish, you can use it to make soup, stews, or use it in fried rice. Warning: it's addictive! It's rare for me to be without some in the fridge these days...

Cabbage kimchi is usually made with what we call Chinese leaves in the UK, though you can use white cabbage. Traditionally the paste is stuffed between the leaves of quartered cabbages, but this is chopped cabbage kimchi (mak kimchi), which I find easier to use. FWIW I use Maangchi's emergency kimchi recipe, but with Chinese leaves rather than white cabbage - largely as it avoids the faff of making rice flour porridge. I salt the Chinese leaves for 90 minutes, turning every 30, as that's how she processes them in other recipes.

Kkaktugi is made in a similar way, but with cubed white radish instead of cabbage.