There seems to be a pretty wide range of backgrounds and skills here; maybe someone can help. I worked in Korea for a while in the mid-80s and loved the food. Everyone I talked to back home was grossed out about Kimchi -- I had tried it lots of places and found it uniformly good.

Well, now I know better. All the local Korean stores seem to have moved out to the more distant suburbs, so when I ran out of Kimchi I figured "what the heck, I have Chinese Cabbage, I'll make it myself".

Eww. Gross. And that was BEFORE the fermentation

Anyone (or their S.O.'s) ever try making it ?

I eat the stuff all the time. Of course around here every store you go to has it. Walmart, costco, safeway, etc. Cant figure out how it grosses people out tho! its just some good spicy cabbage. Never made it myself though

Walmart sells kimchi ? Geez, another reason to like Hawaii.

Believe it or not, after a day's fermentation the first batch didn't taste too bad. I decided to take no chances and stuck it in the fridge immediately (which slows the fermentation way down).

In one day it went from "way too salty, almost inedible, despite being rinsed 31 times" to "not bad". I don't understand this at all -- the fermentation should be converting the sugar, not the salt. Oh well...

So... I learned some very important things over the last few days. The most important is that Korean red pepper powder comes in very large zip-lock bags, and that when you squeeze the air out of them you have to make sure the open end of the bag can not possibly flop over and point at your eyes.

^%$#%&^$* that sure did hurt !!

This stuff is kind of fun. It's like bar-b-q but takes less time, has more variants, is spicier, probably has some alcohol in it after it's done fermenting, and is only about 50 calories a serving. The downside is that a single serving has about 1300% of your recommended daily sodium intake ;(

Ya had me all excited about a new cullinary find!!......right up to the sodium content, and how that jives with folks livin' with Congestive Heart Failure

Sorry John but that looks like something out of a horror movie. ewwwww!

It's not really that bad (more like 10% to 25% of RDA), but some of the recipes look real scary at first. If you are making kimchi to store over the winter without refrigeration you just cut the cabbages in half and soak them in brine... brine made with a cup or more of salt. The cabbage is drained before proceeding but you never know how much salt got into the kimchi.

If you are making small batches for immediate use (ie a few weeks in the fridge) then you chop the cabbage up into smaller pieces and salt the leaves directly, using much less salt. I figure I used 2-3 teaspoons of salt on a 4 pound cabbage (~20 servings) so the salt per serving is pretty low (well, maybe 700 mg Na per serving after the brine drains away). Probably no worse than a big pickle

The first batch was way too salty and didn't have enough pepper... second batch was not salty enough but had too much pepper... third batch is looking good so far.

My Wife is a real cabbage fanatic, but most of her favorites are rather traditional. This looks like a way to get some cabbage into my diet(which would make HER happy)but yet add some zest into the entire previously somewhat bland experience

She also likes to experiment with new foods, so it would give her some new areas as well....Everybody wins

I had the same problem. Other than cabbage rolls, I have a tough time eating much cabbage. Good kimchi (made the way you like it, which takes some time to figure out) solves the problem completely, you end up snacking on it instead...

man, you must really love kim chee.

i like it from time to time, fortunately we have a lot of hawaiian transplants in Norcal so we have our share of hawaiian restaurants that have kim chee as a side order. Of course, I can only eat it w/ rice.

Yeah, I lived in Korea for a while. I guess that helps

I just found another downside...

My current house is not real big, but the basement is fully finished so that helps a lot. The only unfinished room is the laundry room, with a bare concrete floor.

I walked into the laundry room this morning and was sure that one of the dogs had taken a dump somewhere in the room (all of the family dogs tend to poop in front of the dryer if you leave the door open, I don't know why).

I searched around, even behind the furnace and the beer fridge, but didn't find a thing. Eventually I concluded that the smell was coming from the second batch of Kimchi, which had now been fermenting for a couple of days. It's pretty impressive really -- the stuff bubbles gently, and the lid (I use Rubbermaid containers) bulges like a five year old can of tuna.

Popped the lid and "phfftt", I knew where the smell was coming from. Guess this is why the Koreans (and Germans) ferment their cabbage outside.

Like a fine cheese, however, the stuff does taste better than it smells

In reply to:

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Guess this is why the Koreans (and Germans) ferment their cabbage outside.

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As someone that thinks exotic food is a chimichanga, I tip my hat to your adventurous palette. The idea of oriental fermented ANYTHING (especially the writings of SEAL Team Six founder CDR Richard "Dick" Marcinko, USN Ret. talking about his experiences with "real" Nuc Mam - fish buried in clay pots and left to rot) really doesn't appeal to me.

Bren R.

Don't worry... everyone has their limits and I have mine. In my case it was "Thousand Year Eggs" in Nanjing -- raw eggs buried in (I think) limestone and left to "think about things" for several months. The rain and the limestone leach the calcium out of the shells leaving them kind of leathery, the egg yolk turns into a grey crumbly thing, and the egg white turns into what can only be described as purple jelly.

Apparently you eat these. Despite my curiousity, I can not tell you how they taste.

Man, this stuff is just plain gross.

Thousand Year Old Egg

I'm thinking a rack of ribs on the slow cooker might be sounding pretty darn good about now.

May I tip my hat to you as well! I had spent some time in the Phillipines and in Hong Kong(before the Brits left) and while I did get to know some of the families fairly well, I have to admit that their foods weren't, uh..quite as adventurous.

I thought I was going on the wild side by simply considering a fourth version of cabbage

But...since none of the little ones are any longer in diapers, I don't really have an explanation for the aroma should some visitors come a callin'

That dosent't mean were going to stop researching the matter, just perhaps tempering our expectations a bit

and perhaps waiting just a little so we can shut off the air conditioner and open some windows

I spent a few weeks in Korea on contract w/ the Army in '95. My side trips were only to most of the bases like Camp Casey, the one in Seoul just next to Itaewan, and Wonju.

I did develop a liking for bibimbap but have yet to find a place stateside that will cook it in a real cast iron bowl. I think our liability concerns keep restaurants from serving it correctly...

I'm Filipino so my tastebuds can be a little adventurous. Granted I don't eat balut, never could stomach it.

Balut...yeah heard of that...

....didn't try "it" either