Making Kimchi

Kimchi is said to be Korea's national dish. A name that encompasses a wide range of chilli-soaked fermented vegetables, Koreans eat it with most, if not all meals and there is a popular Korean saying - 'a man can live without his wife, but not without kimchi'. They take this stuff seriously.

There are hundreds of different types, characterised by main ingredients but also of which season they were made and which region they come from. For someone with such a love of pickles, it was only natural that I would fall in love with kimchi. Its sour tang, hugely pungent aroma and spiciness was a great draw.

Not content with commercial offerings (though very good they are too), I set about making my own. My first attempt was half arsed (below) and it showed. I lobbed a load of chilli powder in with some cucumber and daikon that I needed to get rid of. This produced a harshly flavoured affair and the lot went in the bin and I forgot about it all for a few weeks.

I wasn't to be deterred though and once the kimchi craving hit me again, I set about getting the ingredients to make it properly. Glutinous rice flour is used to make a paste with Korean chilli flakes - and specifically Korean, as they use a type of chilli that is redder and milder than others, thereby colouring your kimchi well without making it so spicy it'll blow your face off.

Mixed with flavourings and seasonings, the vegetable of choice is smeared with this and packed into jars to ferment.

Left out on the side for a couple of days to get the fermentation going, I arrived home one evening and heard a strange hissing sound. After a few minutes of total bewilderment, I discovered it was coming from the jar. I opened the latch and the kimchi promptly exploded across the kitchen wall and covered me in cabbage juice. Fermentation produces gases and I packed my jar too full, causing all the kimchi to rise to the brim (below) and make a break for freedom. My housemate was aghast.


It was a right pain to clean up.

After a couple of days fermenting the kimchi went in the fridge. It tasted great just after two days but for a stronger, more soured flavour the longer you leave it the better it gets. I've taken to eating a lot of it straight from the jar, but I've also used it as a flavouring for roasting broccoli, and frying rice with it.

Cabbage Kimchi

Makes quite a lot

2 heads of Chinese leaf (Napa cabbage)
Loads of table salt

Chop your vegetable up into even sized pieces. Wash thoroughly and then coat liberally in salt, and place inside a colander. Turn every half hour or so, and leave for 3 hours. This is so that the salt leeches the moisture from the cabbage.

110gr coarse Korean chilli powder (Londoners, you can get this upstairs at New Loon Moon)
60gr glutinous rice flour (plain flour will also work)
250mls water
125ml fish sauce
1 large onion, minced
6 cloves of garlic, minced
2" piece of ginger, grated
2 eating apples, peeled and grated
A bunch of spring onions, top and tailed and chopped into three
Many people also add raw oysters or salted shrimp but I'm too much of a wuss. Next time, next time...

Whisk together the water and the glutinous rice flour and bring slowly to the boil, stirring all the time. Cook for a few minutes and take off the heat. Allow to cool.

Stir in the chilli flakes, then add the garlic, onion, ginger and apples. Add the fish sauce and mix well.

Wash the cabbage thoroughly, at least a few times to make sure all the salt has washed off. In a large bowl toss in the spring onions and then add the chilli sludge. Combine well using your hands - if you have any cuts on your hands wear gloves otherwise it'll sting like a bastard.

Pack into a sterilised jar, leaving plenty of room from the top to allow for fermentation gases. Leave out on the side for a day or two (open the lid to this every so often to let the gas escape) and transfer to the fridge. It's good to eat as it is for at least 3 weeks - after that it may become quite strong but still good to use in stews, stir fries and other hot dishes.

Pickled Herrings

Once I get an idea in my head, that's it; I can't think of much else. I recently had a conversation with someone about Ikea and the foodstuffs you can purchase there and one thought of those little chunks of herring pickled in those jars, be it in sweet mustard or just dill, got the craving going. I wasn't about to attempt a trip to the Croydon warehouse of hellishness, so I set about making them myself.

I started off with Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall's recipe and went from there. Two different fish counters were scoured before I found the herrings that I needed, and for some unknown reason I even had a little cry when I gutted a pregnant herring, full of roe. Emotional stuff. The herrings were messily filleted - my knife 'skills' need work - and they sat in brine for a couple of hours while the pickling solution was cooling.

Pickled Herring

6 herrings
60gr salt

Gut and fillet the herrings - don't worry too much about bones as they are very fine and will soften when pickled. Dissolve the salt in 500ml water and place the fillets in it to brine for a couple of hours.

Pickle solution:

6 juniper berries
1 tsp mustard seeds
4 bay leaves
12 black peppercorns
600ml cider vinegar
6 tbsp light brown sugar
1 small onion, sliced very thinly
A handful of dill

Place all of it except the dill in a small sauce pan and bring to the boil. Simmer for 5 minutes and then leave to cool. Roll the fillets up and pack into a sterilised 1 litre jar or container. Rip the dill roughly and add it in. Pour the solution over your fillets and seal, storing in the fridge.


Hugh's recipe recommends you leave them for at least 5 days, but you can leave them up to a month. I left mine for 6 days before I tucked in. You may notice in the photo that there are strips of orange rind in the pickle solution too; I didn't find this very successful, it was too... orangey. So I'd leave them out. Otherwise, they were delicious. Slightly sweet, properly pickled and firm of flesh. They went beautifully with this summer salad.

Pickled Herring & Potato Salad

Serves 2

5 or 6 large new potatoes
A large handful of broad beans
150gr asparagus spears
7 or 8 cherry tomatoes, halved
Half a red onion
2 pickled herring fillets

Dressing:

4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp dill, finely chopped
Salt & pepper to taste

Whisk the dressing ingredients together well. Meanwhile, set the potatoes on to cook in boiling salted water. I used frozen broad beans so I blanched them and then peeled them of their tough skins. Cook the asparagus until al dente. Toss the broad beans into the dressing and when the potatoes are cooked, halve them and add to the dressing while hot so that they soak it up.

To serve, scatter the asparagus on a plate and top with the broad bean and potato mixture. Halve the tomatoes and add on top with thinly sliced red onion. Finally, slice each herring fillet into 3 large chunks and place carefully on top.

Deep Fried

I don't have the squeamishness that some people have about deep frying. I love it; from the vaguely healthy, like agedashi tofu, to the horrendously deliciously unhealthy, like buttermilk fried chicken. Of course I've had my accidents; my first foray into deep frying was squid tempura and I cowered behind my wok lid shield as furious fat spat all over my kitchen, in protest of having wet squid chucked into it. I learned my lesson from that one.


I saw a post on fried pickles at the excellent Homesick Texan and I knew I had to make it. Pickles? Crumbed and fried? Yes please. A buttermilk dressing was made to accompany it, though I added my own tweaks. Combined, the crunch of the coating giving way to crunchy, tangy dill pickle slices was brilliant. The garlicky buttermilk dressing, with a heavy hand in coriander, made an ideal dipping sauce.

Surprise of the day though was a happy snap decision. Some squat mild chillis were in the fridge, while some halloumi was slowly growing mouldy. Since I had a wok full of shimmering hot oil, I figured I might as well give it a go, and they were a hit. Mild, slightly spicy pepper bursting with melted halloumi was a pretty perfect snack to go with a couple of beers.


Coriander Buttermilk Dressing

Makes a small bowl

4 tbsp buttermilk
7 tbsp mayonnaise
1 clove of garlic
Juice of half a lime
A large pinch of cayenne pepper
1 green chilli, diced
Salt and pepper to taste
A handful of coriander, minced

In a bowl, whisk together the lime juice, buttermilk and mayonnaise. Add the garlic, minced finely and the cayenne pepper and chilli. Add the coriander and mix well. Taste for seasoning.

Deep Fried Pickles & Cheese-Stuffed Chillis

Makes enough for 4 as a light snack

4 large pickled dill cucumbers
10 mild squat red chillis
Half a block of halloumi
6 Matzo crackers
4 tbsp buttermilk
1 egg
Plain flour
Vegetable oil for deep frying

Slice the cucumbers to the thickness of about an inch and leave to dry on kitchen paper. Make a slit in the chillis just down one side and carefully scrape out the seeds. Stuff with sticks of halloumi.

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C. Process the matzo crackers into crumbs and place in a sandwich bag. Whisk together the egg and the buttermilk and cover a plate with the flour. Dip the pickles and chillis firstly in the flour, then the egg and then in the sandwich bag for a good shake to cover. Heat the oil until it's shimmering and a breadcrumb sizzles in it and fry the pickles and chilli in batches until browned on all sides. Remove to a plate lined with kitchen towel and place in the oven to keep warm.

A Pork Pie (or Three)

This year for Christmas, instead of presents, my family set the task of buying a food present worth the value of £10 that we could all enjoy (which rules out cheese and booze - my sister and mum are strange beings). I racked my brains for a while, and then came up with the perfect solution. Pork. Pies. There is no such thing as Christmas without them.

I'd first seen Josh's entry for these over a year ago and had book marked them to try, but of course never got round to it. With a combination of his and Just Cook It's recipe, I devised my own. A day was booked off work - this is a lengthy process and the weekend was too far away - and I set to work.

First thing's first, the jelly that surrounds the meat and the pastry needed to be made. Two pigs trotters, cleaved in half, went into a litre of chicken stock with bay leaves, black peppercorns, carrots, onion and celery. You want to simmer this for three hours, then strain it, and reduce it to 300mls.

The Pastry:

100gr lard
100gr butter
550gr plain flour
150mls water
1.5 tsp salt
2 eggs, plus one for glazing

Melt the lard and the butter in a saucepan but don't boil it. Add the salt to the flour, then break the eggs in and mix the water and fat. Mix until you have a smooth ball, wrap in cling film and chill for an hour.

The Meat:

375gr pork shoulder
375gr belly pork
2 rashers of smoked back bacon
1 tsp sage
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp nutmeg
Salt

Chop the meat into small chunks. I couldn't be bothered to chop it any more finely, so I had quite coarse meat which I liked. In a mixing bowl, add the nutmeg, chopped sage, thyme, peppers and some salt. Mix together well, and take a teaspoonful and fry it, to check the seasoning. Food can taste a bit more bland when cold so be generous with the salt.

To make the pastry, pat into a rectagular shape and then cut in half. Then cut a third off each half to reserve for the lids. Using a well floured jar, shape the pies around the outside of the jar (I used a Branston Pickle jar). Ease the jar out and then fill with the meat mixture. Roll the lid out to fit the top of the pie and cut a hole out of the centre. Crimp the lid onto the pie.

I wanted to make a mini pie as well which is why I have three, but this amount should make two large pies. Glaze the pies with the remaining egg, and place in a preheated oven on 180 degrees for 30 minutes, then turn it down to 160 for 20 minutes.

Take the pies out and leave to cool a little. Stick a small funnel in the hole of the top and pour (VERY carefully) the trotter stock into the pie. Be slow about it as it takes some time to get in there. Leave to cool, and refridgerate overnight before eating with copious pickles and mustard.

There's a few things I learnt from this pie adventure. Firstly - make absolutely sure you've crimped your lids on properly. After a warning from someone on Twitter, I thought I had made sure the lids were well sealed. Not so. As such, I had to make up a water / flour solution to plug the seams with to stop the jelly stock from dribbling out, and then pick the seam off. It worked, but it was a faff. Also, don't try and roll the lid too thinly, or it will crack right down the middle (but still taste good). Otherwise, these were perfect.

Pickled Cucumber

Possibly not the best photo to showcase the pickled cucumber, but it can look boring on it's own. Wafer-thin cucumber interlaced with white onion, but that's pretty much it.

I recently went to Borough Market (on a less hectic Friday afternoon) and was rather taken by the terrine I saw. It sounded amazing, as it was with foie gras, pork, speck and black truffle. I visibly dribbled over it, and only had the merest of eyebrow raises when my one slice came to almost £6.

To accompany this rather extravagant purchase, I thought some sort of pickle or chutney would work well. Glancing in my fridge, a lonely cucumber and some slightly wilted dill only confirmed that pickling was the way forward.

Pickled Cucumber

Roughly 6 servings, depending how much of a pickle fiend you are

1 cucumber

1 small white onion

50gr caster sugar

100ml cider vinegar

6gr salt

3 tbsp dill

In a small saucepan, bring the vinegar, salt and sugar slowly to the boil and then take off the heat. Slice the cucumber as thinly as possible (I used my box grater), slice the onion into semi circles also as thinly as possible and to the cooled vinegar / sugar / salt solution and leave for 24 hours.

The pickled provided a wonderfully tart contrast to the extremely rich terrine. It was mighty tasty, but I found it rather overpriced for what it was. The pickled cucumber was great with smoked salmon, but also potted shrimps and even in burgers.

Pickled

...vegetables, that is, although I wouldn't be that surprised if my liver were in the same condition. The Christmas period can be quite punishing what with work parties, catching up with old friends, and any other excuse to go out and celebrate.

Recently, myself and a bunch of food blogger friends went for a quick bite after a wine tasting at Ping Pong, a chain of dim sum restaurants. The dim sum is pretty average, but what stood out was a dish of pickled celery (right) which was immediately ordered due to my love of all

things, excepting eggs and walnuts, pickled. It was a rather meagre dish which was wolfed down with gusto, and I decided then to have a bash at making it myself.

So, a month or so later, my sister gave me Yan-Kit So's Classic Chinese Cookery book for Christmas. It's a lovely book with a great chapter on Chinese ingredients and full of brightly coloured and well styled photos. A quick flick through drew my attention immediately to a recipe called 'Chinese Pickled Vegetables' - just what I wanted. So, armed with the recipe, I set about making it last night, with some minor alterations.

Yan-Kit So's recipe doesn't use chillis or sesame, but I added these as I couldn't see it working out badly.

Chinese Pickled Vegetables

Makes enough to accompany a meal for 4

1/2 a cucumber
350gr carrots
5 sticks of celery
2 tbsp salt
4 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp rice wine vinegar
2 red chillis
A small pinch of chilli flakes
1 tsp sesame seeds
A drizzle of toasted sesame oil

Slice the cucumber in half lengthways and deseed. Slice into even batons. Peel the carrots and slice into the same sized batons as the cucumber, and do the same for the celery. I find that if you run a vegetable peeler down the length of the celery, it'll get rid of any unwanted stringy bits. Put all the vegetables in a colander and sprinkle with the salt, tossing it all together so that it all gets an even coating. Leave to drain for 2 1/2 hours. While draining, the vegetables will limpen slightly, but this is normal.

Next, give the vegetables a quick rinse and pat dry, leaving them still slightly damp. In a large bowl, mix together the sugar and the vinegar (don't do what I did and mistaken mirin for rice wine vinegar - luckily I noticed in time!). Add the chopped up chillis, the chilli flakes and the sesame seeds, then add the vegetables. Toss well, so that all the vegetables get a coating, then drizzle with the sesame oil and toss again. Cover, and put in the fridge overnight.

I had a quick taste of them today, and the result is delicious. The celery loses it's raw flavour (which I'm not a huge fan of) but still keeps it's crunch, as does the carrot and the cucumber. It's sweet yet salty, and a nice subtle tang from the rice vinegar. It packs quite a punch, so if you're not a big chilli head then perhaps leave out the chilli flakes. I doubt these will make it to the table; I keep nibbling on them here and there. The sesame also enhances the sweetness of the vegetables, although next time I think I will up the cucumber and decrease some celery, as I think the cucumber is the star of the show.