A traditional, simpler, & faster way to make classic kimchi, done by chopping the cabbage in the beginning. Spicy, fermented, and delicious, it's a great side dish for any meal!

Ingredients

10 pounds baechu (napa cabbage)
1 cup kosher salt
½ cup sweet rice flour
¼ cup sugar
water
1 cup of crushed garlic
1 to 2 tbs ginger, minced
1 cup onion, minced
1 cup fish sauce
salty, fermented squid (see FAQ, above)
2½ cups Korean hot pepper flakes (gochugaru) (to taste)
2 cups leek, chopped
10 green onions (diagonally sliced)
¼ cup of carrot, julienned
2 cups Korean radish, julienned

Directions Prepare the cabbage

Trim the discolored outer leaves of the napa cabbage.
Cut the cabbage lengthwise into quarters and remove the cores. Chop it up into bite size pieces.
Soak the pieces of cabbage in cold water and put the soaked cabbage into a large basin. Sprinkle salt.
Every 30 minutes, turn the cabbage over to salt evenly (total salting time will be 1½ hours).
1½ hours later, rinse the cabbage in cold water 3 times to clean it thoroughly.
Drain the cabbage and set aside.

Make porridge

Put 3 cups of water and sweet rice flour in a pot and mix it well and bring to a boil. Keep stirring until the porridge makes bubbles (about 5 minutes).
Add ¼ cup sugar. Stir and cook for a few more minutes until it’s translucent.
Cool it down.

Make kimchi paste

Place the cold porridge into a large bowl. Now you will add all your ingredients one by one.
Add fish sauce, hot pepper flakes, crushed garlic, minced ginger, and minced onion.
*tip: it’s much easier to use a food processor!
Wash and drain the salty squid. Chop it up and add it to the kimchi paste.
*tip: how to prepare salty squid is posted on the FAQ above!
Add green onions, chopped leek, Korean radish, and carrot.
Mix all ingredients well and your kimchi paste is done.

Action! Mix the cabbage with the kimchi paste!

Put the kimchi paste in a large basin and add all the cabbage. Mix it by hand.
*tip: If your basin is not large enough to mix all the ingredients at once, do it bit by bit.
Put the kimchi into an air-tight sealed plastic container or glass jar.
You can eat it fresh right after making or wait until it’s fermented.

I usually put all my kimchi in the fridge except for a little bit in a small container. I like fresh kimchi, so this way the kimchi in the fridge ferments slowly and stays fresh, while the smaller container ferments faster and gets sour. I use this sour kimchi for making things like kimchi jjigae where sour kimchi is better. Then, when the small container is empty, I fill it up again with kimchi from the big container. It takes a little management, but experiment and you’ll get the hang of it! How do you know it’s fermented or not?

One or 2 days after, open the lid of the Kimchi container. You may see some bubbles with lots of liquids, or maybe sour smells. That means it’s already being fermented.