Today I want to share with you our homemade kimchi. My motivation for making our own kimchi is because I want to make sure we have stock anytime, and also to save up on delivery fees (since I’ve been having some delivered since lockdown). This will also allow me to add our own twist in our favorite side dish.

I don’t recall when I first started to like kimchi. But one thing I’m sure of, since I started liking it, eating out at the neighborhood Korean restaurants was once a routine that D and I would have at least one day in every weekend. Back then. I love how our Korean food will have various side dishes called banchan, and most of the time our favorite restaurants would have unimited servings of these. I remember there was a time I was ranting to my friend over chat as I kept looking for kimchi to pair with fried chicken and it was late at night and the Korean grocery near me had run out of stock. My friend, whose dad was a chef, looked at me incredulously and asked why I just didn’t make my own kimchi. And then it hit me – why didn’t I think of that?

And so I did. Tried different recipes and this is the one that I keep coming back to. Prior to today, the last time I made our own batches of kimchi was a good five or more years ago. So today’s batch was a trial and error of some kind. Good thing it turned out well – D, my aunt and cousin liked it. Success!

Here are the veggies I used:

• 1.2 kg Napa cabbage
• .4 kg radish
• 4 stalks of green onion

For the kimchi sauce:

• 6 tbsp gochugaru (Korean red chili powder)
• 8 cloves garlic
• 3/4 Korean pear
• 3 tbsp fish sauce
• 2 inch ginger

1. We washed the cabbage thoroughly and cut into bite-sized chunks. In a large basin, we put 2 cups of water and 1/3 cup salt. We soaked. The cabbage in the basin, placing a pot over it for weight, and tossing it every 15 minutes so the water is evenly distributed.

2. While the cabbage was being soaked, we cut the radish into thin strips, and cut the green onion into strips as well. We set these aside and placed them on the pot atop the cabbage to add more weight.

3. Then I took out the blender, put in the garlic, fish sauce, Korean pear and the ginger. I blended them well, and then placed the sauce in a bown. I then added the gochugaru and mixed well.

4. After more than an hour, we rinsed the cabbage well so that the salt water is washed off. And then we incorporated the sauce to the cabbage, radish and green onion and gave it a good mix.

We were able to make 3 batches of kimchi with these ingredients. I think I’m getting the hang of it, and I’m looking forward to making more batches soon!