Mom’s Kimchi Making

Kimchi is one of the most popular Korean food, not only to non-Koreans but also to Koreans. Kimchi wasn’t my favorite food until some time in my twenties. It took me several years of living-away-from-home life before I found out the great taste of kimchi and all the side-dishes that my mom used to made.

To my mom, making kimchi wasn’t a chore at all. This is probably true to most Koreans who make kimchi. First, she thoroughly rinsed Chinese cabbages, mostly 10 of them, in our yard, using three or four baby-bath-tub size bowls.

She then sprinkled salt over cabbage layers, rubbing cabbage leaves from to time to so that the cabbages absorb salt better. She left the cabbages like that for a few hours. Sometimes, she forgot that she’s pickling the cabbages or was just too busy that she left them like that overnight. Then, of course, we ended up eating saltier kimchi for a few weeks.

Kimchi filling - the essence of kimchi, I must say - was carefully made with lots of ingredients just before she actually made kimchi. The ingredients for the filling varied from time to time but hot Korean pepper powder, chopped garlic, boiled powder water, ginger, and shrimp jot* were the usual ones.

She used a big red bowl to mix other vegetables such as cucumber, spring onions and regular onions into the kimchi filling. After endeavoring to make the best kimchi mix, she started to apply the mix to the cabbages. (she already rinsed the salted cabbages because salt is not always clean.)

It usually took a while to put the mix on the cabbages because the mix needed to be applied to almost each layer of a cabbage. When I became ten or eleven, I started to help her in this process. The mix was salty and spicy for my little hands, but we didn’t wear plastic gloves. We thought tasty kimchi is made with our personal touch, literally! And yes, indeed, the kimchi turned out soooo good every time!

I miss my mom’s kimchi and making it with her a lot, especially when I don’t make one myself. I know how to make it theoretically, but I haven’t tried it myself because I’m afraid that I can’t make a good one. Someday, I will try to make one, my own special kind.

shrimp jot*: picked (salted) shrimp