Saturday, July 31, 2010

Kimchi

Kimchi (김치; pronounced /ˈkɪmtʃi/, Korean pronunciation: [kimtɕʰi]), also spelled gimchi, kimchee, or kim chee, is a traditional Korean dish, made of vegetables with varied seasonings. Many varieties of kimchi are fermented although unfermented varieties also exist.There are hundreds of varieties of kimchi, made with a main vegetable ingredient such as napa cabbage, radish, green onion or cucumber.[4] Kimchi is the most common banchan, or side dish, in Korean cuisine. (from Wikipedia)
I watched a TV documentary on Kimchi. And realized that I could do something to promote Korea's most popular dish, Kimchi. It showed that most of the foreigners know only one kind of Kimchi, the chinese cabbage fermented and seasoned with chili powder. But, there are many kinds of Kimchi, and I am going to share the ones that I enjoy the most. :D  
  • Baechu Kimchi - baechu is Chinese cabbage in Korean. This is the most common kimchi and the one that most foreigners know. In Korea, there's a time to make kimchi. It's during the winter time. The vegetables around December tastes the best so most household makes kimchi with 30~40 heads of cabbage. Since there's a "Kimchi Refrigerator" in most households now, keeping it fresh is not a problem.
  •  Dongchimi - it's mostly made during the winter season. It's not spicy as the baechu kimchi and it is watery. The main ingridient of this kimchi is radish (usually whole), cabbage,  leeks, garlic and it is seasoned with salt. It usually takes 2~3 days to fement and it has really refreshing taste.
  • Chonggak Kimchi - made of young radish, the seasoning is similar to baechu kimchi but only uses the raddish instead of baechu as the main ingridient.

  • Cucumber Sobakgi - it's a stuffed cucumber pickles. It is one of my favorites in summer. Made with cucumber and stuffed with chives and onion withe chili powder seasoning.  
  • Baek Kimchi - Baek in Korean means white, so it's a white kimchi. It doens't have chili powder but similar to dongchimi. It is picked chinese cabbage and most people who can't endure the taste of baechu kimchi could enjoy this.

7 comments:

  1. Hi there! thank you for commenting on my blog!

    All I've tried is the Baechu Kimchi and I didn't really like it. Being a non Korean I guess it's an acquired taste for me. :)

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  2. Ohhhh. So the kimchi that is known all over the world is just a variant. There's more to cabbage kimchi pala!

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  3. @madz: some people don't like kimchi because of its strong taste.. some kimchi has too much "fish extract" which I also don't like

    @J: yup it's just a variant :D i think there's around 100+ kinds of kimchi

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  4. wow a hundred varieties of kimchi! well, that just shows how much koreans love kimchi. =) maybe one of these days, ill find a courage to try kimchi again, not a fan the first time i tried it. ;)

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  5. @ayen: i know! heheh usually just kimchi and rice makes our meal complete :D
    try to have the white kimchi instead.. it's refreshing and really good for those who hate the spicy and hot flavor

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  6. Just a week ago, I saw my Korean neighbor working on buckets of veggies. It's kimjanng time, right? Kimjanng is like the season to prepare kimchi, so they'll be ready by winter time, right?

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  7. @mrs. Kolca... not kimjang time. Koreans make kimchi anytime of the year. :D my aunt makes kimchi i think every month :D Kimjang time is december, we make kimchi on that time :D

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