yummy kimchi

I haven’t made kimchi in quite a while,  but my grocery store no longer carries the two good kinds I used to get (Kimchee Girl and Britt’s Pickles) so I had to either make my own or trek off of Capitol Hill to find some to my liking. Kimchi’s quick, fun and easy to make—much more so than sauerkraut— so I opted to make my own. I wound up going on an outing to H Mart anyway, for my napa cabbage and Korean chives, but ended up with almost a gallon of kimchi!

For a long time I made kimchi and it was sour and spicy and tasty, but never ‘stinky’ like you hear it can be. I always kind of longed for the stink, and then six years ago I got The Kimchi Cookbook and discovered the secret: you just make a little porridge by cooking a small amount of sweet rice flour  in a larger amount of water, then add that to the mix! It’s a really nice cookbook, with lots of recipes for unusual kimchis like butternut squash, and Asian pear, as well as recipes to use your results. I’m going to make kimchi tofu stew tonight for my upcoming work lunches.