Who else loves kimchee?

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Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2013 2:44 am

I admit it: I'm addicted. I obsess over it. I eat 2-3 jars a week.......... At least it's totally healthy, not junk food.

Anyone else crazy about it?

Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2013 6:04 am

I had it for the first time at a Korean Barbecue restaurant called: "Tonchang" in Tokyo, Japan. It was actually quite delicious but alas, I don't eat Kimchi that often.

Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2013 9:03 am

We had a good cabbage crop this year and have some kimchi fermenting right now. The Mr grew up with the stuff and I've learned to like it.

We are lucky to have amazing kimchi pizza locally at Pizzeria Lola. Lady ZaZa!

Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2013 9:30 am

I really like kimchi, not 2-3 jars a week but always happy to eat it.
I very much prefer it straight, vs mixed in as some kind of fusion ingredient (the huge fad of kimchi+______ has hit hard around here). Fortunately plenty of choice around here for the straight stuff.

Somebody threw it away when I left a pack in the office fridge. Sure it was sealed but still......

Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2013 2:15 pm

bohigal wrote:

We are lucky to have amazing kimchi pizza locally

Well, normally I wince at the thought of any non-traditional pizza (which means sausage and pepperoni). But I'd love to try kimchi pizza. I've never encountered it. But despite my old-fashioned and 'safe' pizza choices, when I was last in France I had a pizza that came out smothered in arugula (added after baking). I thought that was pretty odd but the flavors were amazing. Now I occasionally add arugula to my homemade pizza.

firehouse5 wrote:

I very much prefer it straight, vs mixed in as some kind of fusion ingredient

Absolutely. No nonsense. Just normal, hot kimchee. The spicer, the better.

Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2013 8:50 pm

Before I went to live three+ years in Korea I would cringe at the thought of spiced cabbage buried in a stone jar to ferment. Now I can't get enough of it. Koreans are obsessive about their kimchi as the French are about their cheese. They have regular festivals where the local kimchi producers show off their stuff. Kwangju is considered a holy city for kimchi.

Cabbage is just one of several vegetables used to make it. You can find kimchi made from cucumbers (my favorite), tomatoes, peppers, radishes, etc.

I can only find the cabbage variety here at home so I settle for that. I only get a few jars a month because I am the only one in my house who likes kimchi.

The down side of kimchi: step on a crowded Korean bus or subway car, especially in the winter. You are sure to be bowled over.

Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2013 9:26 pm

Cucumber kimchee....... I really want to try that.

Baiting Guru Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 12237

Anything with cabbage, or cabbage related, is just fine with me, fermented or not. Just picked a big pan of Brussels sprouts out of the garden.

Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2013 10:36 pm

Brussels sprouts........ Another of my favorites. For a few years after I first got married I kept asking my wife to cook some Brussels sprouts with dinners. She never did. Turns out she thought I was joking (as I am known to do on occasion. Well, often.). But I was dead serious.

Since then we eat a ton of them whenever they're in season. Like right now.

Steamed, cut in half, then sautéed in a little olive oil with some chopped prosciutto. Now that's good.

Baiting Guru Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 12237

I love them, and they grow like a weed. From my experience they need some cool fall weather to sweeten up a bit. I added a picture of this evenings harvest.

Edit: The greens are good also, in soups and such. Don't forget to squeeze some fresh lemon juice over them after they are cooked, heaven.

Posted: Thu Oct 03, 2013 2:20 am

^
Have a go at making some sprout & pea soup, then add some mint sauce to it Wink

Baiting Guru Joined: 03 Mar 2006 Posts: 7101 Location: Yes

Brussels sprouts are the devil's work. Vile, noxious little cabbage heads that only get worse as you actually puncture their spongy, layered skin releasing a pungent mist of bile-inducing odor that permeates your 5 senses (that's right, my sense of sight is actually diminished temporarily), rendering you inert. The ONLY way I've ever been able to eat them was at a restaurant that halved them and then roasted them with herbs and bacon before drizzling with a cheese sauce, thereby eliminating any hint of their actual terrible flavor.

TL;DR: I don't like Brussels Sprouts.

Now kimchee on the other hand is wonderful.

Posted: Fri Oct 04, 2013 7:41 am

Pizza with arugula is superb. I do it every now and then.

Posted: Fri Oct 04, 2013 9:02 am

Mrs Man will be making sprout pakora for Christmas. Totally great with a mint yoghurt dip!!

Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2013 2:58 pm

I like kimchee, but it can lead to these...

(I think I would rather have ^those than brussel sprouts)

Baiting Guru Joined: 17 Sep 2006 Posts: 5905

Only if it is washed down with soju... in fact... forget the kimchee Smile

Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2013 5:10 pm

I grew up in a household devoid of all cabbage. No corn beef and cabbage, no slaw, no kraut and no napa kimchi. My father was in a gulag in Siberia where all he got to eat if he worked was half a cabbage. He told me that after a few months the cabbages would not go down. I've learned that there is a chemical that builds up in a person if they have too much cabbage. As a result I had to learn later in life to love the foods that we never got and learned how to make kimchi. I make kimchi with napa, radishes and cucumbers but avoid excessive garlic and do not use fish paste.

Oi Sobaegi Kimchi are cucumbers stuffed with ginger and garlic. I usually see it with just sliced cucumbers but what I do is cut the cucumbers in chunks and then score the skin side so that the heat and spices get into cucumber chunks.

A quick way to try cucumber kimchi is to take a Persian, Japanese or any unwaxed cucumber, pound it on a counter top to bruise it, slice it or cut it into chunks and bury it into a half jar of cabbage kimchi. Let it sit covered two days in your refrigerator before you enjoy it.

I do a Red Curry Mussel kimchi but no one ever takes more than a taste.

Our family still talks about the best kimchi we have ever had. The kimchi was served as an appetizer and had oranges and cloves. It was served at a Chinese restaurant that we have never found again.

The worst kimchi I have ever had was at a chain restaurant run by a Hawaiian bakery. The server told me that kimchi was supposed to be moldy. The manager told me that there was nothing wrong with food with twenty mold colonies and spore bodies per square centimeter and that was the way they got it from their distributer. I got a nice response to an email that I wrote to the operations manager, the heath department and local paper. I was offered a dinner to make up for the one I tossed but will never go back again.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 01 Oct 2013 Posts: 12

music man wrote:

Mrs Man will be making sprout pakora for Christmas. Totally great with a mint yoghurt dip!!

That strangely sounds quite delicious. Shocked

Posted: Mon Oct 07, 2013 1:53 pm

Being a country boy from a sheltered background, I had not heard of Kim-chi before reading this thread.

For reasons I shan't go into here because frankly they would sound bizarre and might lead to an unpleasant custom tag, I decided to chop some onions - just regular salad onions, quite sweet, flavor not too strong - and leave them in a 1 liter container on my computer desk, just to the left of my keyboard, for about 6 months. (Don't ask)

Much to my astonishment and both delight and dismay, they smell wonderful, really appetizing. Totally unsuitable for priming and balancing above a closed door, but quite edible, nay delicious.

I shall for sure be trying this technique with some other vegetables as described above, and if an experiment goes wrong, well, there are still plenty of suitable closed doors around...

Posted: Mon Oct 07, 2013 5:31 pm

I had Kimchee for the first time last week. On the store shelf there was a white kimchee and a red one. I chose the red.

I really liked it. I grew up eating cabbage, but never fixed like this.

Posted: Mon Oct 07, 2013 7:34 pm

I shall have to track down some of this mysterious Kimchee, never had it! My only experience with cabbage has been my late grandmother's "boiled dinner" -- cabbage and potatoes, etc. Stunk the house up for days. Ugh! I would always pick out the potatoes and leave the rest. Mad

Posted: Mon Oct 07, 2013 8:20 pm

^^Look for it in the produce department, in or near the case where they stock specialty salad dressings. Or better yet, look for an Asian grocery. Tip: if you've never opened a jar of kimchi before, be sure to hold it over the sink before you twist the lid off.

Morgain Le Fay wrote:

I had Kimchee for the first time last week. On the store shelf there was a white kimchee and a red one. I chose the red.

I really liked it. I grew up eating cabbage, but never fixed like this.

The red one is the right choice. It is the spicier of the two.

While I can eat kimchi, cole slaw, stir fired bok choy (Chinese cabbage) and kraut by the cubic yard, I can't get past the smell of boiled cabbage. Wave a ten thousand dollar bill under my nose and tell me it's mine if I swallowed it, I couldn't do it. It broke the heart of my Austrian grandmother, who was very proud of her cabbage rolls.

Baiting Guru Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 12237

lakeside77 wrote:

cabbage rolls

^ If you ever make it to NE Minneapolis try the cabbage rolls here, they are quite good. I'll be happy to join you.

http://www.nyespolonaise.com/

Posted: Mon Oct 07, 2013 8:39 pm

With due respect, I think this place has even better cabbage rolls. It's across the street from Nye's:

http://www.kramarczuk.com/

Baiting Guru Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 12237

^ I think Nyes has a better atmosphere for an outsider. Though, Kramarczuk's has some damn good food, best sausage in town.

I might also send him off to Standup Franks (edit: Sadly I discovered it is no longer SUF's, someone else bought it.). My friend famously walked out of there to find his car surrounded by crime scene tape, it was a murder scene. He had to come back the next day to retrieve his car.