Ingredients:
- 1 cup of basmati rice
- 1 3/4 cups of water
- 1 clove
- 1 black pepper kernel
- 1 cardamom pod
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 small handful of sultana raisins
- 1 pinch of ground cinnamon
- 1 slightly larger pinch of turmeric
A very simple recipe which I adapted from a German-language Indian cookbook that a friend gave us as a gift. Nothing fancy but very tasty.
First rinse the rice a few times in water until stirring the water no longer makes it cloudy. Pour off the excess water. Add the spices and raisins. Then add 1 3/4 cups of water for cooking.
Leave the mixture covered and let it soak for about 15 minutes. Then turn on the heat and bring the rice to a boil. After the water has boiled, leave the lid on the pot and turn off the heat. Wait approximately 10-15 minutes until the rice has soaked up the water.
Easy and good.
Ingredients:
- napa cabbage
- sea salt
- sugar
- garlic
- ginger
- green onions (scallions)
- powdered chilli peppers
I found a recipe on the internet about six months ago that I more or less followed the first time, but since then I’ve been experimenting with different combinations and altering the recipe to get as close to “real” kimchi as possible. In the early jars I used brown sugar, whole dried chilli peppers, and probably too much salt. Now I use a kind of grainier white sugar, less sea salt, and a korean chilli powder that I found at a local chinese market. Anyway the procedure is simple and hasn’t changed over several batches.
Day 1:
Peel off and wash the leaves of a napa cabbage (with a big one I can make two 900 mL jars) in a large contained with cold water. Then place the cleaned leaves one by one in a large container (glass or stone are much better than metal or plastic) and sprinkle a little sea salt on each one. Press the leaves down if they don’t fit. When all the leaves are in you fill the dish with water so that as much of the surface is covered as possible. Leave this in the fridge for 24 hours.
Day 2:
Prepare a large bowl with maybe a cup of sea salt, a cup of sugar, two or three cloves of garlic (chopped small), three to six green onions (also chopped small), maybe some ginger if you want (also chopped), and a decent amount of chilli pepper powder. Mix that up. Drain the water out of the container of cabbage leaves and rinse of any excess salt. Prepare some clean 750-900 mL jars. Wear latex gloves so the pepper doesn’t get rubbed into your skin because this would hurt. Have a big working area because this is messy and smelly. Rub each leaf individually in the mixture and then pack it tightly into the jar. Press the leaves very tightly on top of each other in the jar so that the juices come out and make a liquid. Pack the jars so that there’s a few centimetres of space left at the top for gases to build up in the jar during fermentation. Add any remaining onions and garlic to the tops of the jars. Close the jars tightly, rinse the outside of the jar and then store them in a cool, dark cupboard.
Day 3-4:
Leave them stored for 48 hours or until the gas pressure has built up so much that you can smell the kimchi in your cupboard or the lids start to pop.
Day 4-5:
You may decide to release the gas pressure from the jar by opening the lid. As soon as you open the jar you need to move it to the fridge. Even if you don’t open it, if you want the fermentation to stop you can move it to the fridge also. At this point you have edible kimchi to use in soup or stew or (my favourite) on bread with some kind of smoked fish.
