Kaktugui

My first attempt at making kimchi! I never thought I'd see the day. I believe I am officially an ajuma now.



Besides talking to my mom, I used maangchi.com to aid in my Korean cooking endeavors. I more or less followed Maangchi's recipe for kimchi, except modified it to make a much smaller portion, and only used radish to make kaktugui.


I need to work on cutting the cubes more uniformly. This is about half of the large radish which I salted and left to sit for about 2 1/2 hours. Maangchi says 3 hours but I got impatient.

While the radish was salting, I prepped the other ingredients.


This is the flour and water and sugar "glue" that will be added to the rest of the kimchi paste. My mom does not use flour and water, and next time I might try to skip this as well. (3/4 cup of water, 2 tbsp of flour, 1 tbsp of sugar)


Garlic and ginger...


Which went into a food processor with a little onion. I probably could have chopped it myself, but it was just so much easier in the food processor.


I added a little water to help it puree.


So, here are the makings of the kimchi paste: the flour-water mix, garlic-ginger-onion mix puree, grated carrot and radish, scallions and chives, 1/4 cup of fish sauce and more kochukaru (red pepper flakes) than I've used in my entire life (about 3/4 cup).


The heat emanating from the chilies filled my apartment and made my eyes water. Ok, I'm exaggerating slightly, but it was intense.


Radish now rinsed, reading to be pasted.


I went the Michael Jackson route and wore a glove.


There was enough to fill two small glass jars. I had a lot of the kimchi paste leftover - the proportions I used would have worked for at least one whole large radish.


I let these sit out for two days and had a taste... not bad! The radish seemed slightly under-salted, or not thoroughly pickled. It could have been my impatience (should have gone for the full three hours of salting) or because it had only been two days.

In any case, I put the jars in the fridge.


I've been eating a little each day, and it is getting more and more fermented so maybe it just takes time. For a first effort, I am rather pleased.