On Legwork

Regular readers will know I will go to great lengths to procure the foods I love. Many times this involves disproportionate effort, often due to my belief that I should be able to produce anything I eat, even if I don't always do so. I once, for example, made bonito flakes; it's a month-long curing, smoking, and drying process, just because I love a bowl of udon. I've also processed coffee, from berry to cup, in part to understand how it is done. Other times the effort I'm willing to expend is simply a great deal of old-fashioned leg work. In general, I am willing to walk, cycle, or drive any distance for a meal or an ingredient. Once, when in Naples, my wife and I walked the streets for hours, starving, unable, somehow, to find a single restaurant. We talked up the giant, steaming bowl of mixed clams we'd seen served in several establishments the night before until it became all we could think about. When, finally, we spotted a restaurant, a quick check of the menu revealed no clams. Silently, with empty stomachs still, we slipped back into the restaurant-less night. It's the sort of pursuit I often find myself on. Let me tell you a story.

This particular quest began, as do most of my adventures, with a craving. I woke one morning with a desperate desire to have Korean BBQ for dinner. In Sydney this is no challenge at all; there are several dozen Korean BBQ places within a few kilometers of my apartment. This time, however, I decided to cook at home. I mentally prepared a shopping list – rice, beef, chicken, soy, garlic, lettuce, spices, and whatnot – and headed into Chinatown.



The sheer size of the Asian population in Sydney makes purchasing any Asian foodstuffs a very simple task; one need only to go into the CBD and choose from the vast variety of shopping options. Which is what I did. I was home, beef marinading, before midday.

When dinner time rolled around and I started cooking, I began to assemble the finished meal in my mind. Beef and chicken cooked at the table, lettuce leaves to wrap them in, bowl of sticky rice on the side, and a big bowl of OH MY GOD I FORGOT THE KIMCHI.

Kimchi, for those of you who don't know, is a Korean pickle. The most popular version is made from cabbage, which is mixed with flavorings and allowed to ferment. The name, kimchi can refer to a host of varieties and dishes, but for the most part, outside of Korea, when you order kimchi, you'll get some brined and fermented cabbage that has been flavored with chili, garlic, onion, shallots, and ginger. Famously, the traditional method of home production was to bury large earthenware jars filled with kimchi so that it could slowly ferment over great periods of time. It is squeaky when bitten, spicy, sour, salty, and delicious. When eating at Korean restaurants I order serve after serve, sometimes consuming more pickled cabbage than I do everything else combined.

Only, for my home meal. I had no kimchi. Begin insanity. With rice already on the stove I dashed out of my apartment and ran up to the local supermarket, telling myself on the way that kimchi was common enough in this city that I should be able to pick it up anywhere. Wrong. No luck at the supermarket. Quickstep it down to the next-closest supermarket, one city suburb over, for the same result. Wait! What about my local Korean restaurant; they'd sell me enough to get by. Backtrack a bit into my own neighborhood only to discover a “CLOSED MONDAYS” sign. Aaaaa! Why does it have to be Monday? Now, technically, I've got someone at home making sure the rice doesn't burn, but by now I've exhausted the majority of my shopping options and the time I have before dinner is rapidly running out.

In desperation I do something of a mini-canvass of all the local shops. I must have ducked in and out of two dozen establishments: little corner shops, convenience stores, any place that stocked as much as a bag of potato chips. I had no luck at all. Long after I had given up and headed for home, I walked past a dingy little shop not a block from my house which I had never patronized before. The sign read “Mixed Business” and what I could see through the open front door was a collection of tinned foods, household necessities, postcards, and cheap tourist merchandise. I stepped in, took a half second look and turned to go, when the woman behind the register, whom I picked as Chinese, asked “What you rook for?”

“Uh, kimchi?”

She looked at me, then at the door, and then squinted at me in silence. After a moment of this study she asked, slowly and deliberately, with more than a little disbelief in her voice: “You rike-a the kimchi?”

When I answered in the affirmative, the shop keeper, who was, it turns out, Korean, slowly reached under her bench, always with an eye on me, and produced a gigantic jar of kimchi. This she opened and from it filled a small container for me. I thanked her, embarrassed without knowing why, paid, and took my kimchi.

I left, feeling strangely like I'd just participated in a drug deal. I still really don't understand what was going on.

Luckily, I now know how to make my own kimchi. It's no last-minute thing; it needs at least a week to ferment. However, it keeps in the fridge forever and with a little planning I'll never find myself without again.



Kimchi

The method for kimchi is not unlike making sauerkraut. Salted cabbage is mixed with flavorings and allowed to ferment. The result is some of the tastiest kimchi I've ever eaten. I rike-a indeed.

½ head nappa cabbage (about 1k)
2 tbsp salt
water to dissolve

Cut cabbage into 3-4 cm chunks Dissolve the salt in a bit of water and toss this with the cabbage. Sit overnight in the brine. Rinse well.

2 heaped tbsp chili powder
2 tbsp water
1 large nob ginger, fine mince
2 spring onions, sliced
5 cloves garlic, peeled
1 white onion, peeled
1 nashi pear, cored

Mix together the chili powder and water. Into this mix the ginger and spring onion slices. In a blender, puree the garlic, onion, and nashi until smooth. You may need to add a touch of water to get everything moving in the blender, but add as little as possible.

Mix this onion blend into the chili mix and then toss this through the rinsed cabbage. Transfer to jars and stand in a dark, cool place with the lits slightly loosened (to allow the escape of fermentation gases) for a week. After one week, seal and transfer to the refrigerator. Your kimchi is ready and will keep for several weeks in the fridge.