Ferment…

My missus went out that morning and I guess she took the opportunity to do a bit of marketing/shopping to stock up on the food in the house. She does that once in a long while so one can expect her to come home loaded with a whole lot of stuff.

Well, when I ventured into the kitchen later that morning, I saw a basin full of Chinese cabbage or wombok, one big daikon or pek chai thow/white carrot/radish and a bundle of kuchai (chives). It was quite obvious that she intended to make her own homemade kimchi, the traditional Korean preserved/fermented vegetables.

She makes her own quite regularly and stuffs the bottles filled with the fruit of her labour in the fridge to enjoy slowly and makes some more when it runs out. It had been a while since I last saw that – I guess at a time like this, she does not go out all that often so she did not have all the ingredients required.

I don’t know, other than the aforementioned, what else went into the making but I think I did see some julienned carrot in the finished product…

…and I remember at one time, she did tell me that she would add cincaluk (fermented shrimps) or what they call saeujeot (새우젓) in Korean. They do include that in their kimchi paste when making kimchi.

She also has these two plastic tubs of Korean stuff…

…in the fridge. I guess she also adds those to her kimchi. The red one is the gochujang or the fermented red chili paste but there is nothing I can decipher in the other one – it seemed like fermented black bean paste, what one would find in their jjajangmen (noodles).

Once it was done, she would let the bottles stand on the kitchen table for a few days to let the kimchi ferment – she does not put them in the fridge right away.

She did put aside a bit…

…to sample and I heard them praising it to the skies.

My girl did mention before that the mum’s kim chi is simply the best, second to none. I wouldn’t know of course – I’m not into the stuff. LOL!!!