cook: kimchi

I picked up a large head of napa cabbage along with a lot of bok choi, which took up a lot of space in the fridge. I decided to make kimchi, but first a trip to Jagalchi for more Korean food research. I decided on bulgogi, two kinds--one sweet and the other spicy and japchae. Even though I was making a spicy kimchi, I decided to buy also a package of white kimchi. Grocery bag stuffed with my intended purchases, I decided to sit and eat a half dozen tray of steamed oysters with gochuchang cocktail sauce.

And because the trays of sashimi and sushi in the deli case were twice the size that I wanted to consume, I also ordered hamachi sashimi (delicious like butter!) and the special of hotate (scallop) sushi. I had also longed to eat the Korean pancakes, but am saving that for the next time I shop this Korean emporium, which is so much closer than the HMart in San Francisco. I think I may even try to cook a shrimp jeon on a mountain cabin getaway.

 

Mother's Day was also days away when I shopped at Jagalchi, and there was a photo booth set up by a florist, whose bouquets I was loving. The color palettes were my favorite.

And this visual merchandising is definitely giving me ideas.

Maybe I'll bring the giant white Cone 10 vase I rescued from Clay People and bring a bunch of different bouquets from Trader Joe's. Definitely, I'm going back to the pottery wheel to improve my vase-making.

 

Afterward on a Friday afternoon, I cleaned and cut the napa cabbage and made a salt water solution. Into a bowl all the ingredients went and then set a plate atop to keep the vegetable submerged. The salt water bath needed to soak for 5 hours, but I only soaked it for 4.

  

I mixed the salted cabbage with the Korean chili flakes and fish sauce and chopped garlic and ginger. Into 2 quart jars went the cabbage mixture to be stored in a kitchen drawer to ferment.

But I forgot to add the green onion and had no more gochucharu flakes. However, I did have gochuchang paste, and so the next morning I cleaned and trimmed the green onion and cut them into 2" lengths and poured out the seasoned and spiced cabbage from the jars into the large bowl to combine with the scallions I had rubbed with the gochuchang paste.

I thought the kimchi looked okay. A couple days ago on an afternoon, I could see bubbles floating to the top and opened the lids to let the carbon dioxide escape and not create a messy explosion in my kitchen. The next day, I turned them upside down in the drawer, so the top of the vegetables could get all that delicious fermented juice. This morning, I decanted the kimchi into two other jars and then put them in the fridge.                 

I also tasted, and my concoction tastes like kimchi! This homemade kimchi is ready for its 3 hour drive to the cabin and then Friday night dinner tomorrow.