Pickled Korean cabbage kimchi: recipe for a spicy and savory appetizer

Kimchi is one of the most popular ways to cook cabbage in Korean cuisine. Chinese cabbage is best suited for this dish as it has large, lush leaves and goes well with sweet and hot peppers. In general, the appetizer is very successful, quite spicy and extremely easy to prepare. Korean cabbage can be eaten on its own, added to scrambled eggs, boiled rice, fish or meat.

Popular Ukrainian chef Yevhen Klopotenko shared a recipe for pickled Korean cabbage, also called kimchi, on his official website.

Ingredients:

• Chinese cabbage - 1 pc.
• rice flour\cornstarch - 3 tbsp.
• carrot - 1 pc.
• green onions - 1 bunch
• radish\daikon - 1 pc.
• ginger root - 2 cm
• sweet pepper - 300 g
• chili pepper - 300 g
• garlic - 5-6 cloves
• coriander seeds - 1 tsp.
• fish sauce - 50 ml
• sugar - 2 tbsp
• salt - 7-8 tbsp
• water - 2 glasses.

Method of preparation:

1. First you need to prepare the cabbage: cut off the end (tail), cut it lengthwise into four parts, and then cut each of the quarters across into three parts. Disassemble into leaves and wash them in water.

2. Next, sprinkle the cabbage leaves with salt and leave them for 30-60 minutes so that the cabbage leaves become salted, juiced and slightly softer.

3. Meanwhile, boil flour (you can replace it with starch). To do this, pour water over, put it on the fire and cook until a thick mass is obtained. Then remove from the heat and let it cool.

4. Next up is the sauce. To make it, pass the sweet and hot peppers, garlic, and ginger through a meat grinder or grind in a blender. Add 2 tbsp of sugar and 1-2 tbsp of salt to the resulting mass and mix.

5. Cut green onions into small 4-5 cm long pieces, carrots into half rings, and daikon or radish into strips.

6. At this stage, rinse the salted cabbage and pat dry slightly. Add fish sauce, coriander, vegetables, rice flour mixture, and pepper sauce to the cabbage. Stir and leave to pickle for 1-2 days. Kimchi can be stored in the refrigerator for about a month.