Kimchi has many great health benefits — helping with weight management, lowering blood sugar, promoting gut health, probiotics, fibre, boosting your immune system, inflammation and many more great aids to help towards improving your health.
It will be fresher and contain more live cultures.
With this recipe I will also add some ideas of how to use it in your home — it is a super versatile ingredient.
Ingredients
2 napa/Chinese cabbages
½ cup flaky sea salt
1 cup water
¼ cup rice flour
1 Tbsp caster sugar
1 daikon radish
1 carrot
½ bunch spring onion
¼ bunch of chives
½ cup minced garlic
½ cup minced ginger
1 minced onion
¼ cup fish sauce
1 cup Korean chilli flakes (gochugaru)
Method
To start, cut your cabbages in half and then half again, removing the cores and washing out with cold water. In a large container, cover the leaves with your salt, making sure you rub the salt deep into the leaves. Leave to sit for 30 minutes then turn the cabbages over, do this every 30 minutes for 2 hours. After this is done, rinse the leaves under cold water.
During this 2 hours you will have time to start prepping the other ingredients. For the daikon and carrot, you want baton-shaped sticks. These can be as thin or as thick as you’d like — preference is up to you. You can also grate the two if you’d like to make life easier.
And cut your chives and spring onions into small rounds.
Using a food processor, you can blitz your garlic, ginger and onion together.
If you don’t have one, then use your knife, chopping these down fine enough to make a paste-like consistency.
To make your porridge — add your water, rice flour and sugar into a small saucepan and cook until it thickens up, stirring the whole time.
Take off heat and add your fish sauce, garlic, onion, ginger and chilli flakes.
Rub this paste all over the cabbages getting the mix right into the leaves as deep as you can. Cover your kimchi container with clingfilm and leave for 2 days. You will be able to tell if the kimchi is fermented by the sour smell and taste. It will also bubble when you push down on it. Once you’re happy with your fermentation, you can store it in the refrigerator to slow down the process.
Be creative
Now that you have your delicious and healthy kimchi on hand for use, here are some ideas for what you can do with it:
• Kimchi fried rice
• Kimchi mayo — for burgers or salads
• Chopped up through salads
• As a side to main dishes
• Kimchi pancakes
• Put through soups, stews and noodle dishes
Kimchi is a great healthy snack on its own, but can also be used in so many ways in your kitchen to add extra flavour to your dishes. Be bold and get creative!
Kimchi mayo
Ingredients
½ cup kimchi
3 egg yolks
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp rice wine vinegar — or any light vinegar
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
½ tsp flaky salt
¼ tsp white pepper
3 cups oil — canola, vegetable or whatever you use in your kitchen
Method
Blitz everything but your oil in a food processor until it goes light and fluffy. Very slowly start adding your oil — you don’t want to do this too fast, or it will split. Once you’ve added all the oil, check for consistency and seasonings. If you’d like it thicker, add more oil and if you’d like more seasoning, then add more salt and mix until you’re happy.
This sauce is great for burgers and salads or even for dipping. Enjoy.
