One Hot Mess - Kim Chee, The Other Side of Fermentation

Fermentation is the process of using yeasts and/or bacteria to convert carbohydrates to alcohol and carbon dioxide or organic acids. This blog has been focusing on the alcohol side of fermentation but this week I explored the organic acid side by making Kim Chee (or spelled Kim Chi), a traditional Korean vegetable dish. There are many varieties and recipes for Kim Chee, perhaps as many as there are kinds of beer you could brew? The most common varieties of Kim Chee are fermented. Kim Chee is made with a main vegetable ingredient such as cabbage, radishes, green onion or cucumber, plus plenty of spicy!

Lactobacillus bacteria ferment the sugars in the cabbage to form lactic acid which gives the dish a sour flavor. There is even a bacteria names for Kim Chee - Lactobacillus kimchii. Kim Chee is thought to aid digestion because it contains these Lactobacillus bacteria that many people seek out in specialty products. Kim Chee is also high in dietary fiber, vitamin c, carotene, and other important vitamins and minerals like vitamin A, thiamine (B₁), riboflavin (B₂), calcium, and iron.

Exploring different types of fermentation wasn't my original motivation for trying this recipe. I had gotten a very large head of cabbage in my farm share. I made some cole slaw, but there was still 3/4 of the cabbage left. In the 100 degree heat wave in Philly, the option of making some kind of baked or cooked cabbage dish was not appealing. That options left more cole slaw, sauerkraut, or a second attempt at Kim Chee, a childhood treat that my babysitter's husband used to make. I have a cookbook from the church I grew up with - which childhood memories of potluck dinners and bake sales. It contains a lot of New England charm, sprinkled with a bit of ethnicity, including this recipe for Kim Chee.

I tried to make Kim Chee about 5 years ago and ended up with a slimy, smelly, unedible mess. I used a large tupperware type container with a snap on lid. I think this was my downfall - this go around I invested in a proper glass container with a screw top lid. I also planned to be more attentive and make sure I mixed it up at least 2 times per day. Finally, I did a little research on Kim Chee and sauerkraut to find out if there were some things that my recipe was missing. Many recipes suggest fully covering the cabbage in water while it ferments - my recipe only calls for 1/2 cup of water. With so many different Kim Chee recipes out there, I really couldn't get a sense of what to change. I thought, if this worked for Warren (my babysitter's husband) so many years, I can make it work - so I just decided that I would stick to the recipe and hope the glass container was the answer to spicy edible success.

And it was a success. But I give fair warning, the smell can be off putting. My kitchen was a little stinky for the week of fermentation - but my boyfriend kindly said that it smelled good, apparently he only could smell the cayenne pepper. And the smell doesn't really go away once you've refrigerated it. I've been taking it to BBQs and it sure does stink up my car - or is that the sweaty ultimate clothes and cleats I have in the back seat, or the wet dog? Hmm, maybe I need to get my car detailed.

So, you can eat this as snack, as I did as kid. Or serve it as a side dish at a BBQ. It would be great as a condiment for a burger, sausage, or hot dog. I've been envisioning trying this with a really hearty veggie burger (i.e. not the cardboard kind). Be sure to give people warning about what Kim Chee actually is. In the dusk of an evening BBQ, one of my frisbee teammates mistook it for chicken and was very vocal about her shock and disgust - Kim Chee isn't for everyone.

Kim Chee
Source: my childhood babysitter

Ingredients
4 - 4 1/2 lbs. cabbage, green or Chinese, diced to 3/4 inch
4-5 tablespoons salt
3-4 scallions
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1/2 cup water
Optional: tiny shrimp, chopped radish, anchovy

Mix cabbage throughly with salt and let stand at a cool room temperature for 4 to 24 hours. Rinse well 2 or 3 times. Slice scallions diagonally, then add to cabbage. Mix in the garlic and pepper one tablespoon at a time, mixing well after each addition. Pack into a gallon jar, add the water, and loosely cap with a plastic lid, then set aside at room temperature. One or twice daily, tighten the lid and mix contents. Be sure to loosen the lid again before setting aside or you could end up with Kim Chi all over the walls, ceiling, and floor of your pantry or kitchen. After 5 days, the Kim Chi can be transferred to smaller jars and refrigerated. Kept cold, fermentation is topped and jar lids can be tightened (if caps are left loose, everything in your refrigerator will smell like dirty, sweaty socks).

Yields approximately 2 1/2 quarts (which should last a family of four who are addicted to it no more than two weeks)

Photo Above = Day 1
Photo to the Right = Day 3