Kimchi

This is kimchi recipe as featured from a TV program Miun-uri-seki that was aired on 2024-11-25. Three experienced Korean traditional dish chefs (Yi Mi-young 이미영, Kim Mi-ryung 김미령, Jo Seo-hyung 조서형) shared their recipes. This is unique in that it brings multiple, regional recipes together into one (i.e. use of pork, fish, and methodologies.)

Ingredients

• Sticky rice liquid (찹쌀풀)
  • Water
  • Cooked white rice (leftover rice is fine)
• Cabbage
• Radish, mostly cut sliced long and thin (3 inches and 3 mm thick), and leave some whole for making them into blocks later during storage
  
• Garlic
• Korean chili powder
• Minced apple and Asian pear (alternatively, ripe peeled persimmons without seeds) -- used instead of sugar
• Salted shrimp (젓갈)
• Salted fish sauce (진젓)
• Green chives (쪽파), cut to about an inch
  
• Hairtail (aka cutlassfish)
• Slices of front hock (pork)
• Containers for storage

Direction

1. Prepare cabbages
   1. Wash thoroughly
2. Make kimchi sauce
   1. Pour minced garlic into a container
   2. Grind cooked white rice with water (instead of sticky rice liquid, called 찹쌀풀 in Korean) and pour it into the container
      
   3. Pour chili powder
      
   4. Put salted fish sauce
      
   5. Put fermented salted shrimp
      
   6. Put minced apple/pear or permissions
      
   7. Mix well
      
   8. Mix in sliced radish and chives
      
   9. Prepare fish and
      • Cut off the tail and the fin
      • Cut off head diagonally from the back of the head and diagonally down
        
      • Scrape out organs
   10. Cut to roughly about height and width ratio of 2:3 inch blocks
3. Scrape in kimchi sauce between cabbage leaves (from inside to out)
   
   • Don't stuff it with sauce, but lightly scrape it in equally
4. Store
   
   1. Fold from the loose end with two flaps hanging to the side
      
   2. Use the remaining flaps to wrap around the fold
      
   3. Take a few green leaves and wrap about two blocks of fish and put in between prepared cabbages
      
      • Note: adding more fish will dilute the saltiness, due to its water content
      • Fish will need to be fermented more than 3 months before eating
   4. Add cuts of radish to the side as a means to adjust saltiness (water from radish will further dilute)
      
   5. Spread out slices of front hock in between layers of cabbages in the container
      
      • Kimchi gains a "cool" taste ("전지가 들어가면 시원해 짐") as it ferments according to an expert
   6. Fill out the gaps on the top with loose (seasoned) leaves