Friday 8 March 2013

Kimchi


Kimchi is my favorite and also my children favorite too. Kimchi that sell in supermarket are very expensive. So I decided to make my own homemade Singapore style kimchi using local fresh chillies and SanDong chilli flake that I can easily buy from Sheng Siong supermarket and local knife brand fish sauce. You can use any kind of chilli flake. I find korean chilli flake is too expensive. Good grade korean brand chilli flake is about $13.90 per 200g and korean fish sauce is about $5.90 per bottle (forgotten the quantity but it is smaller bottle than the knife brand but easily 3 times the price of local fish sauce).. One big chinese cabbage can be easily found in NTUC supermarket and cost about $2.00 depend on the weight. So you know why I learn to make my own homemade kimchi?
One of my Korean friend complimented that my kimchi taste quite like her mum's homemade...though I am not sure and have not tasted her mum's kimchi but I was flattered.. hehehe.. ^^ and of course it encourages me to make more too.... and again and again.. I hope you will like this kimchi too.

Ingredients :
1 whole Wong Bak ( chinese cabbage)
1/2 cup of salt

Kimchi sauce ingredients :
2 tbsp glutinous rice flour
250mil water
1/2 cup fish sauce
1/2 cup chilli flakes
10 stalks spring onion
thumb size old ginger
8 cloves of garlic
1 green apple
5 fresh red chillies
1 tsp sugar




Method 1
Plug out every leaves cabbage  and wash it clean.
Apply salt on every leave and set it asidein a big basin to let the water in cabbage to drain off. Take about 2 hours.
After 2 hours you will see alot of water in the basin and the cabbages is soft and not easily break. Drain the water and rinse cabbages with water. Squeeze out any excess water. Cut into 2cm length. 





Method 2 (sauce)
1.Mix glutinous rice flour with water in a pot and boil when it is thicken and until you see the colour turn slight translucent and slighty boiled. Stir in between to prevent burnt. Off fire once see it is slight boiled that is when there is slight bubble. Set aside to let the mixture (I called it porridge) cool down.



2. Wash spring onion and cut into length of 1 inch., set aside
3. Put ginger, garlic, fresh chillies, green apple and fish sauce into a blender and blend it fine. I add fish sauce here because the mixture can be very thick and difficult to blend.





4. Prepare a big pot and pour "3"  and "porridge" into it
5. Add in the chilli flakes, sugar, cut spring onion. Mix it well.





Method 3
1.Combine sauce (in method 2) and cut cabbages ( in method 3) together. Mix it well.





2.Store it in a small container with lid and leave it in room temperature overnight uncover if you want your kimchi to be sour. It can be eaten immediately after mixed.



3. Next morning, cover with the lid and keep in fridge. Serve anytime you like.

Enjoy making kimchi....  (^ ^)


Updated 4/Dec/2015:
I used the olden way to make the kimchi. I used the traditional pounder to pound the garlic and ginger and apples. It was more difficult to do it...but find it tastes nicer. Just my new updates.. :)
Haveva blessed day.

You may be also interested in these recipe :

You can also find me in facebook page Catherine's Cooking Journal .

28Oct2016 Updates:

Added additional ingredients to kimchi

Additional ingredients:
1 Raddish cut into thin strips
1 Carrots cut into thin strips
2-3 stalks of chinese celery cut into inch length
10 stalks of green chives cut  into inch length

To blend with garlic and ginger:
(Under the above sauce 'Method2' step3)
1 big yellow onion
2 tbsp chinchalok(fermented small shrimps)




Updates on 14Jun2018:
We just returned from Seoul trip. During the trip, we eat the real Korean kimchi almost everyday. In our 1st day there, we went to eat Samgyetang in Jongno-gu near Bukchon village. When my children put the restuarant's kimchi into their mouth, the 1st comment daughter made was "Mmmmmm... tastes like mummy's kimchi!" Haha.. I was flattered..  Then the rest of the family also started to try their kimchi and all said the same. I was really flattered by their comments. Haha..lol.. "the authentic Korean kimchi tastes like mummy's kimchi" is a tall hat for mummy. Still I am happy to hear from my family.😊

Since the comments from my family were so good, we did not buy any kimchi from Korea but I bought Korean chilli instead. 

Yesterday, I made kimchi using the chilli I bought from Korea. This is the combination using international ingredients making Korean Kimchi with same method as above:

Singapore local brand fish sauce + Korean chilli + Auatralia chinese cabbages + Malaysia spring onion + China garlic & ginger + Thailand glutinous rice flour😄

This is an economical way of making kimchi with international ingredients!



Do leave your comments if you like this recipe. Thanks












8 comments:

  1. Hi Catherine, I was thinking of using Shandong chilli flakes too in my kimchi and chanced upon your recipe. May I know if this tastes the same as store bought kimchi?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @Charmaine Ng
      Dividual family's kimchi has its unique taste. Family prefer homemade.

      Delete
  2. Thanks for the wonderful recipe. My hubby tried doing twice, very yummy. Today I tried to do it! Really foolproof. Next time I will try shandong chilli flakes, after we are done with our Korean chilli flakes!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @My Sweet Ginger + Ebi
      Thank you for trying this recipe. Glad that you like it. I have been using shandong for many years. 😊

      Delete
  3. Hi... thank u for sharing! I have yet to try... but may I know how long can the kimchi be kept?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for viewing this blog. My kimchi finished within 3weeks. No chance to keep longer than that.

      Delete
  4. Hi Catherine, chance upon your website. Is bit rice flour or glutinous rice flour for the porridge?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Jullie, thank you for viewing. yes the glutinous rice flour is for making the "porridge". Pls view Kimchi sauce ingredients and "method 2(sauce)" as in the blog.

      Delete