The Return of the Living Kimchi

I combined my love of horror movies and my hobby of fermenting to bring you "The Return of the Living Kimchi"!

Then I drew this ridiculous label in PowerPoint and posted it on Facebook. Now that you're up to speed on everything I've done with my life for the past two weeks, lets continue.

This kimchi all started when I went to pick up my CSA one week and napa cabbage happened to be one of the vegetables. Only 1 head of the cabbage was included in my share, and 1 napa cabbage isn't enough for me to bother making a kimchi with, so I picked mine up thinking it was destined to end up in a stir fry dinner and continued down the line. But all that changed thanks to an elderly couple behind me in line (this is getting exciting, right?)!

They got up to the bin of napa cabbage and the man asked his wife "Do you want this weird looking thing?", at which point my ears perked up. When she replied "I wouldn't even know what to do with that" I seized the opportunity and pounced!

"If you don't want it, I'll be glad to take your napa cabbage" I told them. And when they said go ahead, I responded with a loud "Thank you! I'm going to make it into kimchi!" like an overly excited 4 year old who just got offered a ride in a fire truck. 

This is the greatest day of my life!

It made things a little awkward after, but no matter, I had what I needed and it was time to make some kimchi!

Ingredients

• Brine
• 2 heads of napa cabbage, cut into 2"x2" squares 
• 1/4 cup salt (for the brine)
• Seasoning Paste
• 1/2 cup yellow onion, thinly sliced
• 4 teaspoons garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons fresh ginger, grated
• 1/2 of a peeled apple
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 cup Korean chili pepper flakes
• Other Stuff (I couldn't come up with anything better to call these)
• 4 green onions, green part only, cut into 2 inch pieces
• 1/4 cup water

When I started making this, I planned to use mushroom broth just as I had done in the past. And since I don't normally post the the same recipe twice, I didn't plan to take any pictures and just started making the kimchi as I would any other ferment that I've made before.

But when I got to the part where I needed the mushroom broth and sugar, I remembered there was an option of using apples and salt in its place. And since it's fall and my house was flush with apples, I decided to go with the apples and continued on my merry way (whistling like one of those little shoe cobbler elves).

It wasn't until I finished everything that I realized I had just made a new recipe and that I need to put it up on the blog so I could remember what I did incase I wanted to make it again some day. But at that point, it was too late for pictures, which is why you won't see any in shots of the kimchi being made and instead are getting random things like a kid in a firetruck and this.

Hello.

Anyway, if you want to learn how to make "The Return of the Living Kimchi", read on. If you just came here for the occasional lame joke, go watch the trailer for the movie on youtube and then skip down to the results section.

Process

Make the Brine:
Combine the cabbage and the 1/4 cup of salt in a bowl and let it sit for an hour or so. After the hour is up, drain the liquid, rinse the cabbage to remove the salt, and the let it sit in a colander or spin it in a salad spinner to remove any excess water.

Make the Seasoning Paste:
Combine all that action from the seasoning paste section (except for the chili pepper flakes) in a food processor until it becomes a paste. Then transfer it to a small bowl and fold the chili pepper flakes into the paste with a spoon until everything is well mixed, and let it sit for 15 minutes.

Make the Kimchi:
With your hands, mix the cabbage, seasoning paste, and the green onions together in a bowl until the paste is evenly spread over everything. Then take your contact lenses out and feel your vision burn away!!!! Or wear gloves. I'll leave decision up to you.

Once everything is combined, transfer it all into your fermented vessel. I used a crock, but you can use large mason jars for this as well. Then swirl around the 1/4 cup of water from the 'other stuff' section in the bowl to get any left over paste you can, and pour that over the top of the cabbage.

After that, put your weight on top of the cabbage to keep it under the liquid, put a cover on your vessel to keep anything from falling in, and set it out of the way to ferment at room temp.

After about 3 days, your done! You can now transfer your kimchi into smaller jars and then move them to the fridge. I took an added step here, and after transferring them into smaller jars, I put the lid on tightly, and then left them to ferment at room temperature for 1 more day like that. This is to give a little bit of carbonation to the kimchi, but isn't required if you want to skip it.

You can eat it now, or you can let it continue to ferment in the fridge. It will last for months, and the longer you can wait, the more flavor it will develop.

Results

The Return of the Living Dead is my favorite horror movie! If you've never seen it you should seek it out, it's everything a great horror movie should be. It's fun, it's gory, it's over the top, and it never takes itself seriously. It's also the movie that introduced the world to brain eating zombies and The Tarman! Wait....who?

This guy!

Anyway, this isn't a movie review site, this is a fermentation site, and I don't know where I'm going with this. The important thing is, the movie is awesome, the label is awesome, and more importantly the kimchi is awesome! Its spicy, its sour, and it tastes as delicious as any kimchi I've ever had or made! So if you're looking to make a kimchi without shrimp paste and fish sauce, I highly recommend giving this a try.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a movie to watch.