Making kimchi

Making kimchi
Originally uploaded by kattebelletje.

Kimchi is Korea's national dish: fermented Chinese cabbage preserved in a spicy chili mixture. It tastes zingy, spicy and fresh at the same time and goes really well with all kinds of dishes, also with fried rice. In Korea, they have it with about every meal and the Koreans believe strongly in its healthy properties. They even took it along on their first space flight as astronaut food.

I made it myself the other day, and it really is not hard. YouTube videos, for example Maangchi's one, make huge amounts with massive cabbages. The cabbages one buys here in the supermarket are about twice as small, and I recommend just one plain Chinese cabbage for starters, to get a feel of the whole kimchi making process and to see if you like it!

For this recipe, you will need :
1 Chinese cabbage
kitchen salt

kimchi-mixture:
1 cup of Korean chili flakes (red pepper powder, 90 grams)
1 cup of rice flour, sugar
1 yellow onion, 6 cloves of garlic, piece of ginger
3 spring onions, some sprigs of Chinese chives (12 or so)
4 centimeters piece of daikon radish (or 15 small European red radishes)
fish sauce

Cut the cabbage in half lengthways. Then make a cut on the stem side, but don't cut through, only halve the stem - the cabbage is still attached at the leaf side. Immerse the two cabbage pieces in cold water for 20 minutes, drain.

Sprinkle the cabbage with salt all over: lift up the leaves and put in salt between all nooks and crannies of the cabbage. Now leave to sit for two hours.
Turn the cabbage after two hours (some liquid will have come out of the cabbage) and leave again for two hours. You can make the kimchi mixture in this time (read further down).

After these four hours rinse the cabbage in plenty of water, getting rid of all the salt. Don't forget this step (I did once, and the kimchi tasted foul later on!). Then wring out all water from the cabbage. It will be very limp. Try to make it as dry as you can.

Make the kimchi mixture sometime in these four hours of waiting:
Add one cup of rice flour and 1.5 cups of water to a pan. Slowly heat the mixture, stirring constantly, until it thickens to a kind of paste. Add 4 tablespoons of sugar when it starts to bubble and cook for 1 minute more. Take off the heat and let cool.

Cut up 3 spring onions into slices, a couple of sprigs of Chinese chives into chunks. Whizz a piece of daikon radish, 6 cloves of garlic, a piece of ginger and a smallish yellow onion in a food processor until all cut up (you can do it with your Chinese cleaver too). When the rice flour mixture has cooled, add your Korean chili flakes, 2 tablespoons of fish sauce and the daikon-garlic mixture and stir to combine. [some recipes call for raw chopped up oysters at this stage, but we leave those out for now]. Add the spring onions and chives. It will become a deep red spicy sticky mixture, like a paste. Put aside until your cabbage is ready.

Making the kimchi:
Use your hands or kitchen gloves to rub the spice paste all over your cabbage. Lift up the leaves to rub the paste everywhere, covering the cabbage all over with the red chili mixture. Fold the cabbage pieces neatly in their original shape and fit them snugly in a plastic container. Cover with lid and put away at room temperature for two (!) days.

During this time, the cabbage will start to ferment and the kimchi will get its unique flavor. After two days, there will be small bubbles in the liquid surrounding the kimchi and the smell will be fresh and sour, reminding perhaps of sauerkraut. Remember the kimchi smells clean and zingy, never foul or off-putting! Move the container to your refrigerator, it will keep for months.

Just today I had it the fusion sauerkraut way (a la zuurkoolstamppot): I mixed some shredded kimchi into potato mash, turning the mash into a beautiful red and great spicy dish. Like so many spicy things, kimchi is highly addictive - you soon might want to make more!

Chinese fried eggplant

Eggplant strips ??
Originally uploaded by kattebelletje.

You know it by now, I love watching Chinese cooking videos - for example on YouTube- and getting new inspiration. The older Chinese cookbooks are to blame- they hardly have any photos, only boring characters, so you have to be super dedicated to really read it all without a picture to make one hungry.

Watching a video is much easier. There is a series from CCTV or Beijing TV which is quite nice. Every time the Beijing host invites a new cook or a new guest and they do one or two recipes. It is great to listen to the beautiful Beijing accents and see a dish develop.

This dish is inspired by their video of fried eggplant strips.

For this recipe, you will need:
2 or 3 slender Asian ('Japanese') eggplant
50 to 100 grams of minced meat
cornstarch
2 cloves of garlic
knob of ginger
sugar, sweet bean paste, sesame oil
salt, soy sauce, Chinese vinegar, Shaoxing rice wine
(optional for 'prettying up the plate': small bell pepper dice)

Start by cutting the eggplant into chunks about 7 cms long. You might cut the eggplant into 3 to get equal size chunks. Cut the chunks into half and then into strips - don't make them too thin, just a little bit fatter than finger size. Put them in a bowl of salted water.

After 10 or 15 minutes, take out the eggplant strips and squeeze them dry. Then coat all over in cornstarch and put aside. Fry the eggplant strips in a wok with hot oil until they are golden brown and crispy. Drain on kitchen paper.

After frying the eggplant strips, take out the oil (if there is any left) and leave 3 tablespoons. Fry about 100 grams of minced meat. Add soy sauce, Shaoxing rice wine, sugar, salt, chopped up garlic and ginger cut into strips to get a nice mixture. Add a little water to make a sauce, then return the eggplant strips to the pan.

Coat all eggplant strips with the sauce, stirring and turning, and add small chopped dice of red and green bell pepper for color (if desired). The eggplant will be very crispy, but not too oily because of the cornstarch crust. Great dish for the Chinese repertoire!

Summer cooking

Big Green Egg
Originally uploaded by kattebelletje.

Although the summer was not half as long as I hoped it would be - and I could use a lot more of summer heat - I really enjoyed cooking outdoors. After one year of indecisiveness I finally jumped into action and spent my money on a Big Green Egg, the Rolls Royce of barbecues (or, as they would like to say, 'smoker and grill').

This green Egg is like a large ceramic oven in which you put chunks of charcoal. The heat is incredible, it will rise from 0 to 350 Celcius in 20 minutes time. And when you think this takes expertise or careful fanning with newspapers on my part, you are wrong. After lighting you just close the lid and pry all vents open, then it will heat easily without any effort. Anyone can do it!

I realize there is always a lot of fuss about barbecueing, also involving some male / female roleplaying. It seems men want to kindle fires and slap on the big steaks, while women prepare salads and desserts and nibbles. Also, when buying my BBQ, the salesman kept looking at my boyfriend when he talked instead of at me (although this also happens when you go out to buy a computer). Why would that be?

There is something extremely comforting about making your own fire and then cooking on it. It feels so basic and simple. One can hardly call it cooking, just put on some stuff - red peppers, zucchini, eggplants - and they turn yummy and tender and filled with the charcoal flavor, perfect to toss with some olive oil and seasalt. Put on some meat or fish - and again- when they are done they are succulent, smokey and irresistible. In two months' time, I have made salmon, sea bream, red mullet, potatoes, eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, onions, pork tenderloin, pork chops and steaks.

One other really exciting thing is the BGE works as a bread or pizza oven. Although this takes an extra part known as a plate setter, which is basically a very thick ceramic (pizza) stone with 3 feet so the air can circulate, breads and pizzas are supposed to come out great. I have only tried to make pizzas up to know, and the last batch turned out wonderful. A crispy crust and oozing mozzarella with tomato on top. It needs more exploring! The BGE can get so hot some Indian foodies tried to make chicken tandoor in it, using it as a tandoor. And what would happen if I tried to make Chinese style oven duck?