Many people say that despite seeing me cook so many delicious dishes every day, I don’t seem to gain weight. In fact, I love cooking but don’t have a very good appetite. However, I’ve always enjoyed sour and spicy foods to stimulate my appetite. Whenever I lack an appetite, I’ll buy a pack of kimchi from the store downstairs and take it home, cook some white porridge, and it tastes better than any big fish or meat feast… So, I started to experiment on my own and after a few tries, I found the taste to be quite good. Now I’m sharing it with you all, hoping you can also make kimchi that tastes like the ones from Korean restaurants.
Ingredients for Homemade Kimchi:
– 1 head of cabbage
– Half a radish
– 2 spoons of shrimp paste
– A small bunch of chives
– 1 apple
– 1 pear
– 50g of glutinous rice flour
– 150g of chili powder
– A small bowl of fish sauce
– Salt to taste
– 2 spoons of sugar
– 10g of ginger
– 10g of garlic
Method for Making Homemade Kimchi:
Step 1: Prepare a fresh, large cabbage.
Step 2: Tear it into pieces and thoroughly wash each one.
Step 3: After washing, cut each piece in half.
Step 4: Drain the washed cabbage, place it in a large container, and apply salt layer by layer. Marinate for about 8 hours until the cabbage softens, then drain the excess water. Rinse the cabbage with cool boiled water or purified water to remove excess salt, then squeeze out the water and set aside. If it’s still too salty, you can soak it in purified water again.
Step 5: Prepare the other ingredients.
Step 6: Shrimp paste, no specific brand required.
Step 7: Wash the apple and cut it into small pieces.
Step 8: Do the same with the pear.
Step 9: Mince the garlic finely, it’s quite a task.
Step 10: Do the same with the ginger.
Step 11: Peel the radish and cut it into thin, fine shreds.
Step 12: Wash the chives and cut them into small lengths.
Step 13: Pour the fish sauce into the chili powder.
Step 14: Add the chopped apple, pear, ginger, garlic, radish shreds, chives, shrimp paste, a little sugar, and salt to taste, and mix well.
Step 15: Mix 50g of glutinous rice flour with about 450g of water and cook over low heat into a paste.
Step 16: Stir continuously during the cooking process.
Step 17: Pour the cooked rice paste into the chili sauce.
Step 18: Thoroughly mix well.
Step 19: Put on disposable gloves or use a plastic bag, and apply the chili sauce to each cabbage leaf, focusing mainly on the root and just lightly on the cabbage leaves.
Step 20: Roll the cabbage with the chili sauce from the leaves towards the root, and place it in a clean, oil-free, and water-free container. Stack them evenly and let it sit at room temperature for a day before refrigerating for fermentation for about 5 to 7 days.
Step 21: It has to be said that it is sour, crisp and delicious. In the past, when I had no appetite and wanted to have kimchi with porridge, I would go to the Korean restaurant downstairs and buy a portion. Now it’s better. I make a portion from time to time. It’s clean and more comfortable to eat.
Step 22: You don’t need to tell everyone how you got through those difficult days. Most people only see how high you fly, and few people care if you are tired from flying. Therefore, do what should be done and take the path that should be taken. Don’t retreat and don’t waver. No matter how difficult it is, also tell yourself: Hold on a little longer! Don’t let yourself be unworthy of your ambition and also let down everything you have experienced before.
