Kim Chi (Raw Pleasure.com) No Fish Flavour

Kim Chi

 

 

  My first kim Chi recipe I made was directly from Sandor Katz book Wild Fermentation which is a brilliant book. It's not a raw food book as there's bread and other things in there but it's such a great place to start for all things fermented. This is an adaption of that recipe. Thank you Sandor for your inspiration!

I frequently have this on my salads and also add it to my green soups as both a garnish and flavour enhancer. Delish!
VEGETABLES

• 1 large drumhead cabbage (you can use whatever cabbage you like but that's what I used for this vid
• 10 carrots
• 2/3 large daikon
• 2 leeks

BRINE

• 2 litres of water, vegetable scraps
• 4 Aussie tablespoons of ground himalayan crystal salt

SPICE MIX

• 2 cloves of garlic (you can use more)
• chunk of peeled ginger (you can use more!)
• 1 Chili (You can use more! Or less... )
• Fresh tumeric (optional)

Step one
Chop your veggies finely. I normally use the slicer on my food processor for the cabbage and the grater for the carrots and daikon.
Place all of the vegetables in a large bowl. I used a bucket because I don't have a bowl that big. Be creative!

Step two
Time to make the brine. Blend the water, scraps and salt together. You don't need to add all of the water to the blender. You can mix the plain water with the brine as you add it to your veggies as I did in the video.

Step three
Using your hands or a tamper of some kind give the veggies a good massage. You want to massage the vegetables for a few minutes until they start to soften. Then you can weight them down so that they stay under the brine. Leave them for a few hours and when you return they will be lovely and soft!

Step four
At this point you can drain the vegetables. Reserve some of the brine because we'll use that next!

Step five
Blend the spices into some of your reserved brine. You only need a cup of brine or so depending on how much liquid you squeezed out of your vegetables. This is a perfect time to use your personal blender! Blend until all smooth and all the spices are liquified.
Pour this over your veggies and then mix in.

Step six
Pack your vegetables into jars. You can use a single large jar as I have or several smaller jars. It's up to you.
Make sure to leave a space of 2 cm/1 inch at the top of the jar for the product to breath.

Step seven (optional)
If you would like your vegetables to speed up their fermentation time you can add some probiotic as well. Simply add your probiotic powder or open up a capsule, stir it into some of that reserved brine and mix it in. I don't like to blend the probiotics. They are alive and when we add them to the product they 'wake up'. So stirring feels nicer to me.

Step eight
Cover your jar/s with a cloth. This allows the end product to breathe. Also as the good bacteria strains multiply they can cause the kim chi to expand in the jar. You might notice little bubbles forming around the edge. I ended up having to remove some of my kim chi to a separate smaller jar because the one in this vid overflowed!

Leave in a warm (not hot!) place for a few days to a few weeks. Taste the kim chi every couple of days until you find the flavour you like, then put a lid on it and put it in the fridge.
Your kim chi will last several months in the fridge. Voila!


 Read more at :

 http://raw-pleasure.com.au/articles/how-to-ferment-veggies-three-recipes