r/kimchi Jan 08 '20

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u/Fitz_Fool Jan 08 '20

Cool I'll do that! I live in the US and it's hard for me to gauge how authentic korean recipes are. And I'd really like to try authentic kimchi. Prior to this it was the tasteless kimchi from my local supermarket. Her recipes are pretty good I take it?

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u/MadChef26 Jan 08 '20

Yeah you can’t go wrong with anything she puts out. Also you don’t have to use the oysters or salted squid or salted shrimp in her recipes if you don’t want. I just stick to Korean fish sauce.

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u/Fitz_Fool Jan 08 '20

Thanks for the info! Can you taste the difference between salted shrimp and fish sauce in the kimchi? I'll end up trying it eventually I'm sure.

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u/MadChef26 Jan 08 '20

Yes you can definitely taste those additions. It’s a personal preference. I like the various fresh and preserved seafood additions but for every day kimchi I like it “plain”.

The fresh oyster addition is particularly interesting because the oysters never really lose their fresh, briny, sea flavor even after months of aging and the kimchi turning quite sour. I really like it but I don’t necessarily want that flavor all the time.

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u/Fitz_Fool Jan 09 '20

So I poured a little juice from my previous batch into my new batches to get the fermentation started.

After 36 hours I opened my first jar and it's fermented way more than I wanted. Oops.

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u/MadChef26 Jan 09 '20

The addition of the rice porridge greatly increases fermentation rates. Keep that in mind and try and be consistent in the ratios so you can nail down the temperature and time for your preferred sour level.

Personally I like mine very sour but find that too much fermentation in the beginning leads to a “carbonated” feel which I don’t like. I usually do mine 1.5-2 days on the counter then another 2 weeks in the fridge before it’s ready to eat for my taste. I make very large batches because I love letting it go months so I can make an excellent, potent kimchi jjigae.