Hakusai Kimchee (Chinese Cabbage Kimchee)

This recipe of chinese cabbage kimchee is Korean inspired Japanese modified one with short cut in mind. My goal of this recipe is to make decent tasted kimchee with reduced amount of work using ingredient I can find in United States.

In Japan, Kimchee is fairy common food since Korean food is very popular. So I could find several website explaining how to make kimchee with Chinese cabbage By the way, Chinese cabbage is called "Hakusai" in Japan. I browsed these websites and came up with my version. In general Japanese think it is very difficult to make proper kimchee like Korean does in Korea since Japanese does not have know-how or family traditional recipe that each and every Korean family generally has. Therefore, most of the website does not claim their kimchee as authentic. Instead, self satisfying their recipe makes acceptable kimchee for Japanese taste. I would say that my recipe makes pretty good kimchee for my taste!

This recipe requires three sessions over the period of two days. Each session should take from 30 min's to one hour.

Ingredient

Hakusai preparation:

  • Hakusai (Chinese cabbage): 1 whole - about 2 Kg (4 lb)
  • Salt: 100 g (3.5 oz). Tip: use sea salt that gives better taste
  • 4% Brine: Dilute 82 grams (2.9 oz) of salt in 2 L (1/2 gallon) of water

Daikon and carrot for red paste:

  • Daikon: 200 g (7 oz) - peeled
  • Carrot: 50 g (1.8 oz) - peeled
  • Salt: 1/4 teaspoon
  • Sugar: half of 1/4 teaspoon
  • Water: 1 tablespoon

Red paste:

  • Dashi
    • Hondashi: 1 teaspoon (see picture below)
    • Water: 400 ml
  • Ginger, fresh: 10 g (0.4 oz) - peeled. Tip: 20 g of ginger with skin gives about 10 g of skinned ginger.
  • Garlic, fresh: 50 g (1.8 oz) - peeled and core removed. Tip: Small 11 cloves of garlic (50 g) with skin and core give 40 g of cleaned garlic.
  • Fish sauce: 2 tablespoon
  • Dried shrimp: 15 g (0.5 oz). (see picture below)
  • Sugar: 2 tablespoon
  • Salt: 1 tablespoon
  • Ground red pepper powder: 70 g (2.5 oz). IMPORTANT: use coarse ground Korean red pepper. Korean red pepper is not as spicy as non-Korean ones (see picture below).
  • Apple: 1/2 - peeled

Washing dashi:

  • Dashi
    • Hondashi: 1/2 teaspoon
    • Water: 200 ml

     
Korean red pepper powder

You can find it in Korean or Chinese grocery.
Hondashi

You can find it in Japanese, Korean or Chinese grocery.
Dried shrimp

You can find it in Korean or Chinese grocery.

 

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Steps

Step Image Description
1

Hakusai preparation -- Thursday 10 pm

Removed dirty outer leaves from a hakusai. Cut it in half lengthwise from the top down 1/3 of the length toward the root end. Hold both parts of the hakusai firmly and pull it in half. This method prevent inside leaves from cut into pieces.

Repeat it for half hakusai to make it quarter.

If the hakusai is too tough to do this, just cut all the way by knife.



2 Rinse the hakusai with cold water to remove dirt and sand. Then drain water.

Then, immerse the hakusai in 4% brine for 10 mins.

3 Take the hakusai out from the brine. Drain it. Do not discard the brine.

Apply salt only on root part of the hakusai (whitish in color). Apply more salt on outer leaves while apply less on inner leaves.

4 Place the hakusai cut side up in a container. Add all the brine used to immerse the hakusai.

Place 2-4 plates as weight on top of the hakusai and keep it for 12-24 hours depending on your preference for saltiness.

In this page, the hakusai is immersed for 12 hours. You should also experiment for 15 and 24 hours as well.
5

Friday 10 AM

Remove the hakusai from brine and wash each and every leaves under cold water to remove salt thoroughly.

It is important to remove the salt well. The washed hakusai should taste only slightly salty but not salty. If too much salt remains after washing, the finished kimchee will become too salty for the taste.

Place the hakusai cut side down for at least 5 hours to remove the extra water from the hakusai.

While draining the Hakusai, continue to prepare red paste.

6

Red paste preparation

Peel apple, ginger and cut then into smaller pieces. Peel garlic and cut in half lengthwise and removed its core.

Put apple, ginger and garlic in food processor (but don't process them yet).


7 Peel and julienne daikon and carrot.

Add salt, sugar and water. Mix and wait for 5-10 mins until wilted. Squeeze to drain liquid from daikon and carrot (but do not wash them).

While waiting, start step 9.
8 Add half of ground red pepper to drained daikon and carrot. Mix them with spoon. It's not necessary to use hand to mix.
9

Put hondashi in 400 ml of water and bring to boil over medium heat

Add shrimp. When it boils, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 5 mins.

Remove shrimp (drain excess liquid) and move the shrimp to the food processor.

While the soup is still warm add fish sauce, sugar and the rest of ground red pepper. Mix them and cool the mixture down.

10 10 Use "grind" switch on food processor to make apple, ginger, garlic and shrimp paste. When the mixture stuck high on inner wall of the food processor, open the food processor and use small spatula to move mixture down before further grinding.
11 Add daikon and carrot (step 8) to the soup (step 9).

12 Add apple, ginger, garlic and shrimp paste (step 10) to the soup (step 11).
13

Mix well and add 1 tablespoon of salt.

You can mix it with spoon, not by hand.

Let it stand for 5-6 hours so that spices soak in.

14

Friday 6PM

For 1/4 hakusai, take out 1/4 of red paste.

Place the 1/4 hakusai cut side up. Place the bottom leave diagonal and it will be used to cover the rest of hakusai after red paste is applied.

15 Wear disposable plastic gloves to protect your hands from red pepper. Red pepper may irritate your skin if your skin is sensitive.

Starting from the bottom, apply the red paste on only whitish root part of the leave.

Apply the red paste on all leaves.
16 When finished, fold the hakusai.
17 Use the bottom leaf to cover the hakusai.

Hold softly and shape it. Remove excess air.

Repeat the step for the rest of hakusai.
18 Place all of 4 quarters of hakusai in container. Use 200 ml of dashi soup to wash down the vat into the container so that you don't waste any red paste.
19

Place stone or plate to prevent the hakusai from floating. Put lid on the container.

You can eat right away but the taste improve if fermented. In winter, store it in cool room (basement) for 3 days (or up to 6 days). Then move it to refrigerator to stop further fermentation.

After 2-3 weeks (stored in refrigerator), it gets sour. In this case, you can use it for fried rice or kimchee hot pot.

During summer season, keep kimchee in respirator right away.

20

 

Enjoy with hot steamed rice!