Kimchi - Korean Pickled Cabbage

I tried making my first kimchi last week. Feeling encouraged by the good result, I made another batch a few days ago - actually this time for my MIL because she LOVES kimchi. Now that I know how to make kimchi myself, I don't have to buy it anymore from the local Asian grocery store - all thanks to Maangchi! I think her site is always the first place I visit everytime I want to cook something Korean. It's extremely hard finding Korean food here, I know 2 Korean restaurants around and the foods there are very expensive (well, they've got no competition...!) and the quality is not always the best. So, her recipes and especially videos are very helpful.

Ingredients (Original recipe can be found here.)

• 2 Napa cabbages, cut into bite size pieces
• App. 1 cup salt
  
• 1/2 cup glutinous rice flour (if you don't have this, change with tapioca flour or normal all purpose-flour)
• 3 cups water
• 1/4 cup sugar
  
• 4-6 cups hot pepper flakes
  
• 1 cup fish sauce
  
• 1 cup minced garlic
• 1 tbs minced ginger
• 1 onion, minced
  
• 2 tbs sambal oelek (optional)
• 1 cup green onions, cut into 7 cm pieces
• 1 cup carrots, julienned

What to do

• Soak the cabbage pieces in water, drain and transfer them to a big bowl.
• Sprinkle the cabbage with salt. Make sure all sides are salted.
• Turn over the cabbage pieces every 30 minutes. This process takes 1.5 hours.
• After 1.5 hours, rinse the cabbage in water - make sure you get rid of the salt covering the cabbage. Drain and set aside.
  
• Kimchi paste: combine the glutinous rice flour and water together and mix it well. Cook this mixture under medium heat. You have to keep stirring (very important) until it gets thick and somehow sticky and translucent like glue.
• Transfer this mixture into a bowl.
• Add sugar and mix well.
• Add fish sauce, hot pepper flakes, minced garlic, ginger and onion.
  
• Add sambal oelek, green onions and carrots. Mix everything well. Keep tasting the paste, and adjust to your liking.
• The last thing to do is to add the cabbage pieces into the kimchi paste.
• Mix, mix, mix...and your kimchi is ready! Keep it in an airtight container and save it in the fridge until you want to savour it another time...:)!

Video from Maangchi. Watch and you're one step nearer to making kimchi yourself at home...!

I think one thing that you have to take care of the most is to make sure that the flour+water mixture has a porridge consistency after you cook it, if not, the kimchi sauce is going to taste horrible. I saw several comments in Maangchi's website asking why their kimchi turned out too salty or too hot - I think this might be because they didn't rinse the salted cabbage before they dumped it into the kimchi paste. I think it's also important to check out the taste of the kimchi paste yourself and adjust it to your liking. If it's too salty, add a bit of water. If it's too hot, add a bit of sugar, etc. It's as simple as it is.