27, were the seeds noticeable when you enjoyed that eggplant?

Triple chocolate brownies

Twice cooked pork (belly) tonight.

Wow yes please.

So pretty

I use the Kings Hawaiian burger buns and they aren't nearly as sweet as the original dinner rolls but that's okay with me. It's a great soft bun but still sturdy enough for a juicy burger.

As you're the resident chef, it can be difficult to disagree with you. Here though, we hold very contrasting views. I find my own kimchi to be far superior to anything I can buy in the store. I can control the level of ferment, and decide what vegetables I want in my kimchi. Maybe I'm just a kimchi snob, though.

Personally I like my kimchi to be so fermented that it's effervescent, almost like sprite or something. Also I've learned that I prefer to swap out daikon for turnips. They tend to stay crunchier and have a horseradish-like zing.

Seeing as I ran out of kimchi two days ago, I figured I'd document my process for you guys.


So the basic ingredients are napa cabbage, salt, gochugaru (Korean red chili flakes), daikon (i'm using turnip as mentioned) scallions, garlic, ginger, and fish sauce. Some people add little brined shrimp (and that's what you find in the store most often), but I don't as I'm allergic.




Here i'm slicing out the core and quartering the cabbage




Then, I chopped it into ~ 2 inch pieces across and put it into two large bowls. The cabbage I picked out was way smaller than what I normally use. You'll see why that sucks later.




Here i'm adding the salt evenly among the two bowl




The idea is to massage the salt into the cabbage until it releases it's water and gets a bit soggy





And you can see it's lost some of it's volume now




Now i'm covering the cabbage with water, and weighing it down with a plate.




You have to let it brine for about two hours, so this is the perfect time to grab a beer




After two hours, you rinse the cabbage three times and let it drain for a bit. If you were to taste it now, it would be noticeably salty.




Here I am chopping the turnip into matchsticks and the scallions into 1 inch pieces




Now to make the paste. The amount of gochugaru you add is almost entirely preference. I usually use 4 tablespoons.




The other ingredients in the paste are garlic, fish sauce, ginger, and sugar





A special note about the garlic -- if you use too much, your kimchi will turn out bitter. I have no idea why this is, but maybe someone here can chime in and let us know. I use about 1 tablespoon




Now you dump everything in the same bowl and mix it with your hands




After that, you pack everything into a jar. Try and really pack it down so that the brine shows at the top. The brine acts as somewhat of a protective layer to the vegetables below.




And here you can see that while I have a layer of brine on the top of my veggies, I didn't nearly fill the thing up to the top like I normally do. Sigh. Stupid wimpy nappa cabbage.




Now you just place the jar in a semi warm area and let it ferment. I try to open the lid to release the built up pressure after day 2 or so. You'll notice bubbles rising to the top during that process. I usually use this time to push the cabbage down more so that the brine continues to cover everything.





It's done when you think it tastes good. It starts to get that fermented funkiness around day three. I usually let mine go for around 5 or 6 days. Then you can basically refrigerate the stuff almost indefinitely.


Let me know if you guys have any questions, and I'll try to answer them.

Thanks for following along!

Hey Chaos_ult, that was a really good post. Maybe I will try it again.

I didn't imply that store bought kimchi is better than what could be made at home, merely better than my best efforts. I feel like fermenting stuff is sort of like baking for me, its not something I am very good at as I tend to want to fidget with stuff when cooking so the patient waiting aspect without being able to taste and make adjustments on the fly is kind of frustrating.

btc,

Tyhe eggplant seeds were soft like the rest, but I did say wtf when I first opened it.

I had an absolutely killer bowl of saimin today at a place called tin roof.

Cowboy, I use the char siu mainly as a breakfast meat. Cut up in chunks, get said chunks hot. Add eggs.

This was my first foray into non homemade char siu and I must say it sucks compared to the chef steps recipe. They are however very different animals. As an egg additive I’m wholly on board with Costco char siu.

Chaos very nice on the kimchi.

Chaos,

That’s awesome, thx!

In the video posted above I believe she uses glutinous rice flour to make her kimchi. Anyone ever used this? What does it add?

I believe it acts as a thickening agent, but it also would probably affect the ferment time.

Making a variation of the chili recipe from post #190 in the chili thread for the 3rd or 4th time now. If you haven't read that thread, I recommend.

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/79/edf/chili-925104/

Prana,

Hadn’t seen that specific recipe before (or had and forgot about it), but it sounds great. Only thing I’ll say is that 1.5tbsp cinnamon sounds like way too much - I doubt the Mexican chocolate he used has anywhere close to that much. I’m gonna do that recipe for my next batch of chili.

I'm not really a huge cinnamon fan and I don't remember it being overbearing. Might want to start with 1.5 tsp. to be sure. I may have not even used that much since I'm not a huge fan. I usually short the recommended celery amount in recipes also lol.

Prana,

Delete that celery comment before btc sees.

My next undertaking is going to be Pok Pok Wings, basically glazed sweet/garlic/fish sauce wings.

Chrissy Teigen was heading to Portland the other day and asked for recs and 50% were Pok Pok Wings. Andy Ricker is a mad genius so that is the next plan. These sound legit incredible.

PSA: if you like matcha, forget that fancy whisk and bowl. Use a blender (handheld or not) or just a protein/cocktail shaker.

27,

Pok pok wings pretty good but SUPER OVERRATED. Def still make them, I’m sure they’ll turn out great, but just setting your expectations better!

Baaaah!

i live in Portland and totally agree with El D. they are definitely very yummy but no where near transcendental. as a point of reference: they just opened a west side location about 2 miles from me and i'm very happy to have them that close because i will still go visit and smash some wings.

Just wow to the person who said "Fire on the Mountain, everything else is overrated". We have a lot of overrated food here but damn.

(Fire on the Mountain is a mediocre local wing chain)

Made the eggplant tonight, really really good.
Made one bare on a wire rack in a sheet pan, and another wrapped in foil. Foil wrapped one was more firm inside where the non-wrapped one was more creamy. Good quality olive oil + a italian herb and dried garlic salt grinder (found in a market in germany this summer, looks kinda like this) and fresh black pepper and this was one of the simplest enjoyments I've had in while.

Thanks for posting yim and for following through 27o

Hoisin dijon wing sauce is phenomenal. I only use hoisin, dijon, and splash of lemon juice, but you could add some sweet heat with chili flakes and honey if inclined. I don't have the exact recipe but it's about 3:1 hoisin to mustard.