Better than anything you will buy in the store.
Couple notes: The cabbage will have to sit overnight in the brine. So don’t prep all your ingredients at the beginning, because then you will be like me and staring at a bowl of sauces that you can’t use until the next day.
Also, once you are done fermenting, it will smell kind of shrimpy because of the sauces used. Once you let it sit in the fridge for a few days, that smell will dissipate and it will taste more like you expect.
Ingredients
1 2-3 pound napa cabbage
2-3 tablespoons salt
1/2 pound daikon, roughly grated
1 bunch green onions, roughly chopped
10-20 cloves of garlic, smashed
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons shrimp paste (could use instead korean salted shrimp, but I couldn’t find it anywhere)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup korean red pepper powder
3 inches ginger, grated
1 quart mason jar (optional but it makes some things easy)
Chopsticks or something else to poke with
GLOVES
Directions
Take the cabbage. Remove the large outer leaves, wash them thoroughly, dry them, and put them in a container for the next day.
With the rest of the cabbage: remove the bottom 2-3 inches (it’s all root), and quarter the rest of the cabbage. Take each quarter and cut in to roughly 2 inch chunks. Put in a large bowl with the salt, and massage for a few minutes (3-5) to work the salt in. Add water to the container to cover the cabbage, then cover the bowl and put it in the fridge overnight.
The next day, drain the cabbage and rinse thoroughly. Add in everything else. Wearing gloves (because otherwise the pepper powder will destroy your hands) massage everything together until the sauce seems well mixed and the cabbage is thoroughly coated.
Working slowly (STILL WEARING GLOVES), start transferring the cabbage to that big mason jar, pressing frequently to release air bubbles. Keep packing the jar until you get to just below the mouth of the jar, where it narrows. Take one of those leaves from the previous day, fold it in to approximately quarters, and stuff it in the mason jar so it holds down everything else. Top off with leftover sauce from the bowl. Loosely cover, and put in a dark place, like in the back of a cabinet.
If you aren’t using mason jars, then whatever container you use will be fine. The advantage of the mason jars is that by forcing everything down with one of the big cabbage leaves, you will keep it all submerged in the sauce, which allows it to ferment but keeps it from getting moldy. If you’re using something more like tupperware, or any kind of big container without a mouth, that’s perfectly fine. Just check it every day. If you see mold growing, skim it off with a spoon. Everything else will be totally safe to eat, just be vigilant.
So, either way, put it in a dark place. If the container is close to full, which it will be if you used a mason jar, put a towel under it, because as it ferments, it will bubble over and make a godawful mess in your cabinets otherwise. Let sit like that 5-7 days. The longer you let it sit, the funkier it will get. Once or twice a day, take the chopsticks and stab down in to it (all the way to the bottom, fi you can) 3-4 times. This distributes the yeast throughout the kimchi and releases any trapped air bubbles.
After 5-7 days, it’s basically done, but you can let it sit longer if you want. Once you like it, put it in the refrigerator. This will basically kill the fermentation, but at this point, it will basically keep forever.
And that’s it! Lots of instructions but really not a lot of work. It’s super easy just time consuming.
eatbensmeat 