(I blame Korea House for this problem).
Next thing I knew I was craving the kimchi soup... Especially on sundays. This is a problem. Korea House is closed on sundays - lame.
ok ok... so I also have thing this for the mung bean side dish (kongnamool). But I figured that one without a recipe :)
I kept imagining Kimchi soup as being complicated, so I looked around online and found the following recipe by Maangchi. She has awesome recipes and videos :)
So I tried it with whatever random americanized brand of kimchi that King Soopers sells and was most disappointed.
If I'd bothered to use my brain I would've realized that I shouldn't have even bothered trying with lame kimchi - but hey I was hungry. ok ok so that isn't really an excuse *sigh*
A couple of weeks ago I decided to follow Maangchi's Kimchi recipe. One problem... ok many problems. I didn't have the Korean Radishes, the fish sauce, or the asian chives. (I omitted the raw oysters because I am a bit squicked out at leaving raw oysters in a jar on the counter for 2 days). So I substituted Dashi for the fish broth and extra green onions for the chives.
It turned out ok...
Yesterday I went to HMart in Aurora Colorado.
I bought everything I needed! well I forgot the chives again but bought two different kinds of fish sauce one that looked like normal fish and one that called out anchovy. Both fish sauces had pictures of kimchi on the labels - Yes!
At the checkout counter the korean lady ringing me up tried to politely warn me that the tub of gochujang that I had was "hot." I politely smiled and nodded :) During this time every ingredient I needed for the kimchi, including the 4.4 pound bag of red pepper flakes, was rung up. Then she hit the 4 medium sized napa cabbages and she paused. As she looked at it you could tell that gears were spinning in her head and then she asked if I was going to make it. I said yes and that I was addicted all while smiling. Then she asked if I had a korean wife. To which I smiled and politely said no. She was very very confused. One thing to note is that I may not have a korean wife but my caucasian fiance loves kimchi even more than I do (I'm a late bloomer to the kimchi).
So anyway..
Today before lunch I opened the fish sauce bottles and sniffed each. @.@ They smell like fermented ass. I got some on my finger and could still smell it hours later even though I washed my hands twice. ugh.
The moment of truth came. I made the kimchi paste and used 1/4 cup of anchovy fish sauce and 3/4 cup of the "normal" fish sauce. I thought I was going to hurl when I mixed it in. Then I added all the other ingredients and the fish sauce almost vanished... I guess 4 cups of chili flakes will mask just about anything ;)
But you know what. The paste definitely tastes more like kimchi this time around :)
and now the end results of my work!
Almost 8 quarts of kimchi! :)
2 quarts of radish kimchi
and 5.8 quarts of cabbage kimchi!
Jars I've decided are mission critical to making kimchi. The last batch was stored in a ziplock baggie and now my fridge and freezer smell of kimchi every time I open them *g*
I'll report back in a few days on how the new kimchi tastes after fermentation :)
No comments:
Post a Comment