Kimchee

Inspired by the success of my sauerkraut, but wanting something a bit perkier to have on hand as an alternative to the kraut, I decided to try making kimchee. There are many, many, many recipes for kimchee out there, so I read a dozen or so, and saved four of them to ponder, then distilled them down into the following:

LACTO-FERMENTED KIMCHEE MK

Cut into 1" pieces:
1 Napa cabbage (discarding the hard joins at the base and core)
1 6-7 in. 'baby' bok choi

Place a couple of inches of the cabbage mixture into a large jar or bowl, and cover with a brine made of:
3 qts filtered (chlorine-free) water
2 cups water kefir (or whey, or you can just use 3.5 qts water)
2 T. salt

Pound/Mash the cabbage mixture using a potato masher or muddler to break up some of the cell walls, then layer on more cabbage and more brine, mashing/muddling between layers, until all the cabbage and brine have been put into the brining jar/bowl.

If the cabbage is not completely submerged (some will float), put a plastic bag into the mouth of the jar, and pour water into the bag. Seal the bag. This will keep air and dust from getting in.

Soak for 12 hours.



Once the soaking period is over, remove the cabbage from the brine, reserving the brine.

Toss the cabbage with:

2 cloves garlic, minced
1 T ginger, minced
2" ginger root, sliced and cut into sticks
1 medium daikon radish, sliced and cut into sticks
1 medium carrot, sliced and cut into sticks
4 green onions, whites sliced, greens sliced thinly on the diagonal



In a bowl, whisk together the sauce:

1/3 cup fish sauce
1-2 T. sriracha (I used 2 and skipped the flakes)
1 t. chili pepper flakes (optional)

Toss the cabbage mixture with the sauce, making sure the sauce is distributed throughout. When well mixed, stir in:

½ cup water kefir grains (optional)

Once everything is thoroughly mixed together, pack the cabbage mixture into one or more jars, allowing some room for expansion. If any sauce remains in the mixing bowl, pour it into the jar(s). If the cabbage mixture is not covered by the sauce and juices, add some of the reserved brine to the jars to cover the contents.

Screw the lid on the jar tightly.If your jar does not have a lid, push a plastic food storage bag into the mouth of the jar, and pour any remaining brine or plain water into the bag. Seal the bag, and make sure it is spread out over the contents in the jar. This will keep air and dust from getting in.

Let the kimchee ferment in a cool place, at a temperature no higher than 68° F, for 3 to 6 days, until the kimchee is as sour as you like.



I put up the kimchee last Friday. Today I tasted it - yum! The jars are now happily albeit more slowly continuing to ferment inside my fridge.

Fomenting Ferment

Welcome to my Fermentorium. Well, to my iguana room in which the table previously designated for people (as opposed to tables for lizards and wee small turtles) has been repurposed into The Fermentorium.

In my quest for a steady supply of non-dairy probiotics, some friends turned me on to MYO (make your own) water kefir (tibicos) and lacto-fermented sauerkraut, the latter of which led to a beetroot and apple relish.

From left to right: water kefir, beet/apple relish, sauerkraut.

I happen to love sauerkraut, and apples, and beets, so these will be perfect for me, assuming I succeed at actually fermenting them properly.

I am not so much in love with kefir - wasn't when I ate dairy (and loved yogurt), and the MYO kefir water is not a happy taste for me, though my komboucha-loving friend Karen thinks it tastes great. [Note: Please read my January and February updates at the end of this post - water kefir is now a very happy taste for me.] Still, after 20 years of being sick and on various meds that tasted downright vile, I am used to ick, so it's doable. It is extremely doable when I add the instant Salabat mix to it (think instant ice tea, but made with ginger, cayenne pepper, sugar, and calamansi juice and no tea). Oh, dear, this is way too good and I don't need all that sugar, as I could easily drink through an entire 'harvest' of kefir water in a single afternoon this way. Happily, mixing a little Stevia and calamansi juice (purchased frozen from my local Asian market) into the kefir tastes just as good, so that's the way I'll drink it.

Of the jars of kefir you see fermenting in the photo above, four have a bit of unsulfured dried apricot floating in them. The yellowish-looking one is for Karen, so I put some dried blueberries in hers.

Reading the Wikipedia page on tibicos gave me an idea: for my next batch, I am going to put in slices of raw gingerroot instead of the apricots (or maybe with the apricot, as I put the fruit in to give the little beasties something else to feed on rather than as a flavoring or coloring agent).

In the mean time, I seem to be able to keep the kefir 'grains' alive (what started out as 3.5 tablespoons of grains on January 6 was, by January 18, 2.5 cups of grains), so I will have both probiotic-laced water to drink and some grains to eat. Yesterday's breakfast was about 1/4 cup of the grains tossed with a bit of stevia and cinnamon and the apricot pieces I picked out when I harvested the water and made a new batch. I'm giving away three of the kefir cultures you see above so I will be back to my original two jars, but with more grains than I started with. I'm harvesting every four days, so should have 2 cups of grains again next week.

As for the beet/apple and sauerkraut, those will be fermenting for several days, assuming they ferment as they should. The beet/apple recipe says to puree them once they are done, but I rather like the shredded texture, so may just leave them like that. As for the kraut, I used a red cabbage and a green cabbage. If the kraut turns out, I may play with some of the other non-red cabbages to see how they taste.

Digits crossed, please, in hopes that all turn out as planned!

January 25 update: Well, when I harvested and re-cultured the grains on Sunday, I had 4 cups of grains and 2 about 3 quarts of kefir water. I now have 8 jars fermenting. Some of the grains will be going to their new homes on Thursday, after I harvest once again. The ginger kefir turned out GREAT! I can now say, I love it - it's refreshing like ginger ale but without the harsh bite of the carbonated ginger ales. Now I just have to keep a steady supply of gingerroot on hand to keep making the ginger kefir water.

I put the fermenting beetroot/apple mixture into the fridge, and one of the bowls of sauerkraut. Neither are quite done yet, but they will continue to slowly ferment in the frige, and besides, I need more room on the table top for my kefir!

I wrote up the way I am culturing the water kefir grains (updated 3/31/2010), in case you'd like to take a look and maybe give it a try yourself. The instructions are based on those I received with my starter culture, but simplified and expanded in some areas. I've seen variations on this elsewhere around the web, so there are other right ways to do it; this is what is working for me.

February 3rd update: I 'harvested' almost 1.5 gallons of kefir water today, some ginger (brewed with slices of fresh ginger root), some apricot (quartered unsulfured dried apricots), and a little blueberry (dried, probably sulfured). The kefir continues to ferment in the fridge, getting a lovely 'bite' after a couple of days. I'm now looking for half-gallon and gallon sized jars because the quart jars are soon going to take up all the available space.

Plus, I now want to make kimchee. Fermentalicious!

Fermented Foods update - February 6: I have been enjoying the sauerkraut and beet/apple relish. I ended up tossing half of each of the batches, draining them of the salty brine, and replacing the brine with kefir water. I think next time I'll just do a light brine and pounding to start the juices flowing, and then replace with kefir water and let most of the batch slowly ferment/sour in my fridge.

March 1 Update: Having yesterday harvested THREE GALLONS of kefir water and a gallon of grains, I have cut myself back to only brewing two gallons of kefir and a half gallon of lacto-fermented lemonade. Some of the older kefir water fed my drains, while the grains fed me. For this latest kefir batch, instead of putting dried fruit or raw gingerroot into the canisters. I plopped in a teabag from my current favorite tea: Celestial Seasonings Tangerine Orange Zinger. See that empty gallon canister (behind which you can see the half-gallon of lemonade)? That's the future home of kombucha, once I get a SCOBY from Karen or grow one myself from a bottle of store-bought.

March 31 Update: The insanity continues. I harvested 3 gallons of kefir this morning, and ended up feeding our sewer system several quarts of grains that have been in my fridge for a couple of weeks, since I haven't been keeping up with eating them (and Mikey (Cyclura iguana) and Treppie (desert tortoise) have been turning their snouts up at them when I add kefir grains to their food; happily for Karen, however, Ginger (doberman) loves them). Despite having given away some quarts and passing my bottle around at a couple of meetings, I still have over a gallon of the last batch left, plus the 3 harvested this morning, so I only made 2 gallons today. I'm loving the cookie jar canisters I got (Walmart carries them, as does Cash & Carry), as well as the 1 gallon mayonnaise-style jars I got at The Beverage People. The latter I use for both brewing and storing the kefir.

Here's what I made today - just two gallons, and one wee quart to give away

Yes, we have some kombucha.

Well, I caved, finally, and tasted some of Karen's kombucha...and so now I have my own mother and am brewing a gallon a week. Here's what mom looks like when brewed with green tea instead of black - she's making her third batch here: