Korean Kimchi / Red Cabbage Kimchi

Korean Kimchi is probably more famous than Korea itself. It is a beautiful salad made with pickled veggies as its main dressing. The Kimchi is used as a base to make some wonderful other korean dishes like noodles to soups to wraps and sandwiches.

One of my roommates in the UK was from Mauritius who made this salad as a ritual after learning from a friend. It helped us all a great deal as during days when we had no time to cook, we used it to stuff ready made tortillas, burger buns or simply tossed in noodles to go along. We never complained about food for that day.

Ingredients

1 red cabbage, slices in long julienne  (you may chop it up roughly)

1 long carrot finely sliced in julienne

1 big cucumber finely sliced

1 big radish finely slices in julienne (optional)

1 big onion finely sliced

For dressing

1 appled cored, peeled 

1 asian pear (naspati in India) cored and peeled

1 tspn ginger garlic paste

1 small red onion finely chopped

1 tspn vinegar( I used white wine)

1 tspn coarsely ground paprika / cayenne pepper / red chilly powder

2 tbsp salt (to be used part for pickling and then washed off

Method

1) In a mixie, blend together, the apple, pear, red onion, ginger garlic into a fine paste.

2) Add the paprika, a pinch of salt, vinegar and give a nice stir

3) In another large bowl, add the chopped, red cabbage. Add the remaining salt and let it stand for 10 min

4) After 10 min the cabbage should wilt a bit and start sweating. If it is not , let it stand for another 4 to 5 min. Using your thumb and fingers give it a nice rub if required

5) When it startes leaving water, wash it under running tap for a min only just to wash off the excess salt, but try to retain the moisture

6) Next add the chopped, carrots, cucumber, onion and the paste

7) You can now add this mixture to a sterilised bottle for fermentation. It is good to be consumed even after an hour if you like crunchy salad but the taste really develops over a day.

8) This can be stored for a couple of weeks in refrigerator

Enjoy your kinchi with the korean sticky rice and curry

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 44