Napa cabbage kimchi is the granddaddy of all kimchi! It is delicious as a taco topper, tossed in fried rice, pureed to create a spread and I most recently dehydrated a batch until crisp and then ground it into a delicious seasoning with a little nutritional yeast to create the best popcorn topper ever! I have replaced the salted fermented shrimp with a bit of miso, tamari, and kelp powder to give it that kimchi funk while keeping it vegetarian. You can find the Gochugaru (korean chile flakes) on line or at any specialty asian or Korean market)
Ingredients:
- 1 small yellow onion, roughly chopped
- 1/2cup of roughly chopped, peeled, asian pear
- a two inch knob of ginger, grated
- 6 cloves of garlic
- 1 birds eye red chile pepper
- 1/4 cup water
- 1 tsp. kelp powder
- 1/2 cup of tamari
- 1 Tbsp. chickpea miso (any miso will do)
- 1/4 cup of coconut sugar
- 1 cup of gochugaru (coarsely ground red chile powder)
- 1 bunch of green onions (green parts only, thinly sliced)
- 1 carrot, grated
- 1/2 cup peeled and grated diakon radish
- 12 cups water
- 1 cup of coarse sea salt
- 1 large napa cabbage (2-3 lbs)
- 3 one litre mason jars (3 weights, pickle pebbles or pipes)
Step one: Brine your cabbage
In a large bowl combine 12 cups of cold water with the sea salt. Cut the Napa Cabbage lengthwise and then into quarters. Place it into the salt water for 6 hours at room temperature. Brining adds flavour and opens up the pours in the cabbage so that is more receptive to the marinade. Rinse it in cold water and try a bite! It should taste a little salty.
Step two: The Marinade
Combine the onion, pear, ginger, garlic, chile pepper and 1/4 cup of water in a food processor until very smooth. Transfer it to a large bowl. Add the kelp powder, tamari, miso, coconut sugar, gochugaru, green onions, carrot and daikon to the paste. Stir to mix well.
Place the drained and rinsed cabbage in a large bowl. Wearing plastic gloves, toss the cabbage with the marinade to coat well. You can keep the cabbage in large pieces or chop it up into more bite sized pieces before putting into jars. I chopped it up.
Place a weight (a pickle pebble or pickle pipe)on top of your open stuffed mason jars. If you don’t have a weight, you can fill a zip lock bag 1/4 full of water to set on top to keep the cabbage submerged in the marinade.) Place in a cool, dark, dry space for up to a week to ferment. During the fermentation process some of the juice may bubble over so place jars on a cookie sheet or a plastic mat. After 5-7 days cap it and store it in the fridge for up to a month. Taste it as it ferments and then cap and refrigerate it when it reaches a desired level of fermentation.
I pureed one jar, left one chunky and dehydrated the third to make a seasoning salt.
Kimchi salt:
Dehydrate one jar of kimchi in your dehydrator (spread onto a few teflex sheets) at 120 degrees F. for 12 -20 hours or until crisp. Allow it to cool. Grind it to a fine salt in a food processor or blender along with 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast! If you don’t have a dehydrator you could dehydrate it in your oven on the lowest setting. Store in an airtight container. Enjoy on popcorn, rice, oven baked fries, and the list goes on and on………..
