The nira kimchi experiment

An easy home-made kimchi (the spicy Korean veggie condiment) that can be prepared in a few minutes, in small batches and eaten without a too long fermentation.
All these ingredients are common in Osaka, and they also slightly differ from those in Koreas.
I followed (not too strictly) the recipe from Kim Ayan’s tezukuri kimchi to kimchi ryori (home-made kimchi and cuisine).

Leaves of nira.They are greens with a garlic flavor. They don’t last long. Making kimchi makes their life a little longer.

Nira, in salted water.

Preparing a spicy paste.

Ami ebi. They are salted mini shrimps. They are very very salty. 1 tbs of shrimps.
Drinking water (mineral or filtered), 1/2 cup.

A few dried chili peppers. Open and discard the (super duper hot) seeds and mill only the skin. For more color and less fire, I mix in sweet paprika powder. I don’t have a so big choice of dried chilis. In Seoul, they have milder ones. I could probably find of some powdered in Tsuruhashi (Osaka’s Korean town), but I’d have to buy one kg to use 10 grams. And powder gets stale very quickly.

Ginger and garlic.

That’s convenient to grate them… to get about 2 tbs of garlic, 1 tbs of ginger.

A few bits of skin of yuzu lemon.

Sesame seeds half-powdered in the mortar. (1 tbs)

Then a 1bs of honey is added. Normally a ts of salt is wanted, but my shrimps being so salty, I didn’t put it. The paste is ready.

I rinsed the nira in fresh water, squeezed it well, chopped. And mixed to the paste.

I added a little of Beni shiki. I had a lot too, and that’s a way to finish them. Their radish flavor will fit in.
Covered well the dish.

And now I eat… not. I WAIT ! So at this point, I can’t tell you if it’s good…

Follow up :

It’s a lacto-fermented condiment. It matures like a yogurt.
The first day, it’s not too good. Then it’s “young kimchi”, quite sweet. Then it’s balanced, the ideal to eat it on its own. And later, it’s a bit over. A bit sour, but the taste is deep and rich, so it’s good to cook. How long it takes depends on the recipe and the storage conditions. Some kimchi last several months, but not in your fridge. So I ate mine after a week :

Now at the second week, sourness appears :

This is what was left. I made chigae with it.

Korean Gourmande (photo compilation of my Korean posts)