“Cabbage: a familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.”
"Life is most abundant and varied at the edge!"
“Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.”
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Listed by Health Magazine as one of the top 5 most healthy foods in the world, kimchi is an easy to make aid to human health.
A traditional Korean vegetable ferment, kimchi is an extremely adaptable recipe. The recipe that I present below is one of my favorite flavors of kimchi but it is very important to note that kimchi is best made from whatever your personal favorite vegetables, spices, and even fruits happen to be.
Ingredients:
5 pounds of your favorite vegetables
(I use cabbage, carrots, kohlrabi, and a little kale)
2 big onions
4-5 chili (or your favorite flavor of) peppers
3-4 cloves of garlic
6 tablespoons of fresh grated ginger
3 tablespoons of sea salt
Process:
Chop your vegetables to whatever texture you prefer. I like to chop them to into fairly thin slices. Place the chopped veggies in a mixing bowl and mash them together with salt. By mash I mean that you need to break up the cell walls of the vegetables so as to begin to squeeze out the vegetables natural juices therefore forming a brine. I use my hands to squeeze the veggies, or sometimes I use an empty jar to smash and squish them. Once you can begin to see juices squeezing out of your veggies, set them aside for a moment.
Now it’s time to spice things up. Make sure you’re using fresh spices and not any pre-chopped or prepared spice mixes as these often contain anti bacterial agents that will kill off the beneficial microbes that form our ferment. Next you’ll want to shred your spices together. I use a food processor as these powerful herbs make me cry when I shred them by hand. Blend up the onions, peppers, garlic, and ginger together. This may seem like it’s going to be way too spicy of a dish, until you consider that the hot, spicy flavors we’re adding here will mellow out and become much more tame as fermentation occurs. I’ll often add horseradish root, and more types of peppers to the spice list, really it’s hard to over-spice kimchi.
Once you’ve ground up your tear inducing spices, you’ll mix them together with the juicy vegetables, and then it’s time to pack them in a jar or vessel.
Potential vessels for your kimchi include: glass jars, ceramic containers, and in a pinch you can use plastic containers. Never store your ferments in metal containers as the metal will cause chemical changes to your brine that will ruin your kimchi. The best container will fit the amount of kimchi that you produce without much room left over. I’ll often use a variety of small jars to accommodate a large kimchi production.
Once your vessels are chosen, you need to begin to tightly pack the kimchi into your jars so that the brine rises out of and covers over the veggies. Push the kimchi down firmly into your vessel with your fingers or an empty jar until the jar is almost full, and a thin layer of brine covers the vegetables.
Covering your jar can be accomplished in a number of ways. You can use a cloth covering held with a rubber band, or I prefer to use a metal lid that fits the container.
Now that your kimchi is packed tightly into a covered lid, find a home for it in your kitchen. I put mine on top of the fridge because this provides a nice evenly warm temperature. You may want to choose a more in the way sort of spot for your first kimchi’s as fermenting kimchi requires some attention and maintenance.
No matter where you place your filled kimchi vessel, you’ll want to check on it daily. Once a day take the lid off of your vessel and check up on your ferment. If you choose a tight fitting lid, you’ll notice air pressure release out of the jar when you twist it open. This is from gas that is naturally released during fermentation. As the gas forms in your ferment, air spaces will develop throughout the jar. Each time you check on your kimchi, you’ll want to squish the veggies back down until they are once again covered in brine.
After only 3 days of fermenting, your kimchi will begin to develop a tangy flavor. This unique taste will let you know that your kimchi is ready to start eating. Taste your new ferment on a daily basis each time you check in on it. I’ll sometimes allow ferments to sit on top of the fridge for over a month, all the while I’m tasting the different stages of growth that occur as the microbes develop in my jars. As soon as the flavor strikes my fancy, I’ll put the kimchi jar into the fridge to slow down the fermentation process and preserve the flavor that I’m enjoying.
Flavor, sustenance, and health are a few of the benefits any individual can glean from fermenting their own foods. When large groups of folks decide to grow their own healthy foods, and share their recipes freely, the entire human culture benefits. With all the hoopla in this country surrounding health care reform, it’s high time we all became empowered to make ourselves healthier, stronger, and more independent. Kimchi, kraut, and all your favorite garden ferments are an easy, effective way of growing your own health, on your own terms.
Now get out there and start fermenting as though your health depends on it!
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The Seed Vol. 30 Septmber 20, 2009 A Giving Tree Gardens Newsletter
Photos by Russ Henry and Shaunna McBride ©2009 ,Text by Russ Henry ©2009 by Giving Tree Gardens, all rights reserved.
“Fermentation is easy. Anyone can do it, anywhere, with the most basic of tools.”
So says Sandor Katz, the man I’m happy to refer to as my fermentation guru!
My copy of Sandor’s book Wild Fermentation is as dog-eared and food stained as any well-used cookbook should be. This is however, no ordinary cookbook. Along with fermentable recipes from around the world, Wild Fermentation presents us with a world full of tasty, healthy potential where helpful microbes rule the day and the human experience is easily improved through cultural fermentation.
In the northland, fall is a natural time to start thinking about fermentation. While harvesting bumper crops of fruits and veggies from our thoroughly composted gardens, some gardeners may be wondering what they should do with the excess food. Fermentation is one of the most effective ways of storing foods as fermenting preserves nutritional content in food while at the same time infusing the food with beneficial organisms that aid human digestion.
Last month I had the pleasure of attending Sandor Katz’ fermentation 101 class held at the Seward Co-op. Listening to Sandor draw connections between the growth of personal health and cultural healing through the use of fermentation was enlightening and inspiring.
In homage to my fermented hero, I recently taught a class at Mother Earth Gardens where I took folks on a fermenting adventure from the fall garden to the kitchen table. We sampled home made beer and 3 kinds of kimchi all produced with fall harvested fruits and vegetables, then I made sauerkraut right there to show how easy and accessible fermentation is for the home gardener. We had so much fun that one of our classmates decided to go home and write about it!
This month’s volume of The Seed is dedicated to Mr. Sandor Katz, a fermentation phenomenon himself, and to the excellent work he does at bringing the health and power of fermentation to a nation in need. Read below to see how easy it is to grow health in your own home!
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Plant Profile: Cabbage Brassica oleracea
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Cabbage is our friend. The cabbage plant is an ancient human cultivar of the wild mustard green. Cabbage and all of it’s Brassicaceae family relatives including kale, cauliflower, kohlrabi, collard greens, brussel sprouts, turnip, radish, rutabaga, bok choy, broccoli, and more all have growing on their surface a bacteria called lactobacillus plantarum. This beneficial organism is exactly the right microbe to help the human body digest and get the most nutrition from our foods. Lactobacillus is responsible as well for the tangy unique taste that sauerkraut and kimchi offer. So our friend the cabbage, and all of it’s relatives, freely offer us all of their delicious healthy nutrition, if only we’ll commit the little effort it takes to ferment these magical plants.
Of course any northern gardener whose grown kales, or cabbages knows these beauties keep growing strong well past frost. The fact that these amazing plants are able to feed us through the cold weather in both fresh and fermented forms make the brassicaceae family of plants a natural companion of humankind.
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Sandor Katz, a fermentation super hero, taught me every thing I know about making kimchi and Sauerkraut.
This class was held by Mr. Katz at the Seward Co-op in Minneapolis, and recorded by blogger Katey Sleeveless
Kimchi For a Better Tomorrow
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Listen to Russ Henry, owvner of Giving Tree Gardens describe how gardens grow community and safety in the Seward Neighborhood of Minneapolis!
Press play to listen to the 7 minute audio documentary by Katey Sleeveless, musician, and author of the blog,
It's harvest time in the garden! For this kimchi recipe I chose fresh purple and green cabbage, carrots, rainbow chard, onions, two hot garden peppers, garlic, and ginger. Be creative with your recipes, and let your favorite flavors be your guide. In Minneapolis, where an amazing abundance of fresh foods and food growing seeds are readily available, kimchi, sauerkraut, and other vegetable ferments are only limited by your imagination.
Squish the juice right out of those veggies. Show no mercy!
Sandor Katz likes to tell us that "Life is most abundant and varied at the edge". This means that when two or more environments come in contact with each other, the potential to sustain life in each is improved. When you smash up your kimchi veggies, you're blending two environments (juices from the inside, and the skin from the outside of the veggies) thereby creating a happy home for helpful microbes!
Winter's on it's way, but we can help keep your wagon moving on down the trail! Giving Tree Gardens is now pleased to offer high quality residential and commercial
For the greater Minneapolis area!
Snow slow you down last winter?
The salad bowl garden above is practically singing in the sunlight with abundance and health. Fermentation helps folks maintain the healthy potential of their fresh garden foods through the cold winter months
Chop your veggies and salt them to taste. Don't bother about being scientific with your kimchi. Remember cooking is fun! Let your taste and desire for health be your guide, and you'll live a life full of flavor!
Pack the pre-fermented kimchi tightly into a jar or ceramic vessel. You always want your kimchi to be submerged under brine, if you're fermenting dry veggies like carrots, you may want to add a little extra salt water brine to smother your ferment.
You'll want to check in on your kimchi on a daily basis. Each time you check in on it, remember to taste and squish! Keep those veggies covered in brine!
Kimchi for flavor today, and health tomorrow!
