Me: no thank you
Them: we're calling it kimchi
Me: yes I'll take five pounds
I'm a chef at a vegetarian restaurant that focuses on fermented food. I'm happy to answer any questions about how to make your own farting lettuce at home.
I eat meat in my civilian life so I can also answer questions for any brave souls curious about fermenting meat product.
Any chance you could drop us your go-to kimchi recipe?
Also, I always knew Brad Leone was a comrade :rat-salute:
Love Brad Leone. I use his half sour pickle recipe at the restaurant.
I would recommend Maangchi from YouTube for a great intro to kimchi:
https://youtu.be/0sX_wDCbeuU
Vegan comrades can switch out fish sauce for equal amounts of soy sauce.
Also there are enough vegetarians in east asia that Phish sauce is a thing.
Never had it. Is that a branded thing or made at home? I have used the brine from making umeboshi which I've heard is a common substitute.
The vietnamese grocery near my old home sells them next to each other, never checked the brand.
What's the best soy/fish/oyster sauce to have? I really dislike all the offerings at Local Supermarket. I am also open to making my own if that's easyish.
I am really fortunate to live in a place with a lot of access to Korean Markets. I'm not particularly brand loyal and always looking to try something new. My last batch of kimchi turned out better than usual using Lucky Fish Sauce - from Thailand.
I'm really into fishing, hunting, and foraging so I have some experience making my own fish sauce. I'll dig around for the recipe I used and post it below. I remember it being fairly simple and straight forward.
-ANIMAL BUTCHERY WARNING
Fermentation is all about ratios of salt to organic material.
Rough chop 4 or 5 small fish. I use fresh caught mackerel. Use the whole fish- bones, guts, and all. The digestive enzymes in it's stomach helps break it down.
Mix with 25% salt by weight of the fish.
Put in a vessel.
Put weight on top of chopped fish. I have thick glass discs but you can use whatever handy. I've used cleaned pebbles before. The idea is to push the solids down below the liquid line when the salt expresses the fish's moisture.
Loosely put a lid on the vessel. It will need to slowly express gas. There is special equipment available but I hardly ever use it. You can also "burp" the vessel every once in a while.
It actually doesn't smell as bad as you'd think.
Let sit for 6 months to a year. The longer the more depth of flavor. Filter out the remaining solids using a coffee filter or clean old sock. Enjoy your fish sauce.
Thank you! I will for sure try this once I can find whole fish
I'm sure it can be done with cleaned and processed fish too. I have a buddy that did it with ground beef. They said, and I quote, "it was disgusting but I couldn't stop eating it."
Great questions. I've used garlic in a fish sauce to try and approximate a cambodian fish sauce I tried once and fell in love with. It came out pretty well. I love experimenting with flavors once I get a good recipe down. The only draw back is a 6 month investment of time is a lot to gamble on anything too crazy. There are ways to speed up the process using koji (aspergillus oryzae), an edible mold, but that's another whole can of worms.
Most fermentation benefits from steady temps in the mid to low 70s but I don't fret too much about it. I just put it in a closet. I do have a fermentation chamber I've built for more temperamental ferments (beer, tempeh, growing koji spores) but I didn't need it for years. Most ferments are pretty forgiving.
My current fish sauce is in the fridge in a glass condiment bottle who's origin I've long forgotten.
Sorry for the long winded response. I've been drinking and I geek out hard on this stuff. Good luck! Hit me up if you have any more questions.
I'd love a recipe for Fish sauce! I have a bunch of indian/pakistani grocers near me, but not haven't look for an aisian mart.
I posted one from Sandor Katz's Art of Fermentation in this thread. It's a long wait letting nature take its course. It's worth the struggle to get your hands on some.
Them: what if we took milk and added bacteria and mold until it turns blue and smells of socks?
Me: no thank you
Them: this is imported Italian gorgonzola
Me: yes I'll take a kilo.
Also we have to brush the moldy milk with salt water several times a day or different mold will grow on it and make a different tasting moldy milk.
You gotta wonder about the first person to try the fermented stuff... cabbage, milk, grape juice, grain
I legit think the majority of those culinary discoveries were people just forgetting about some food they had and then trying it a month later like, "ehhhh fuck it, probably still good"
I love that the premise of this starts off with some Icelandic dude catching a shark and then just burying it. Like, "hahahaha you piece of shit, don't swim so good in solid ground do you?"
Okay, so these two Norwegian villagers just want to ferment fish for winter, but every year, these fucks come viking and take all the fish. After a couple years, Jørn turns to Roald and is like "enough of this shit." Y'know those poisonous immortal sharks? Let's bury those and let Vikings get their fill of fish.
But then the Vikings come eat the fish and are fine, and in fact demand more of it for next year.
I bet they deliberately tried to invent the grossest food ever just to fuck with the vikings and be like "nah this is all we got for real tho you still want it" and the vikings just ate it out of spite
Hungry and sad. These were people who forgot how to hunt and their crops failed because of sun spots or some shit.
You gotta wonder about the first person who thought cow milk was a normal thing to do.
"Hey dave you'll never guess what's delicious with cornflakes..."
Fermented seafood (Fish, shrimp, etc). Honestly hard to even imagine how those ones were invented.
Under anaerobic conditions and in the presence of salt these can be good: sushi was originally fermented, there’s also pickled herring and both Asian and European fish sauces.
Kimchi was originally a winter food. Properly prepared, it preserves a large amount of calories and Vitamin C for lean winter months
If you ever get the chance get some homemade kimchi. It beats the shit out the storebought stuff and a lot of families have their own recipe, there are regional styles, different kinds.
It's pretty easy to make yourself and so much better, but it's an amazing food no doubt
Pretty sure I make it in my fridge by mistake at least once a month, but I should try doing it on purpose 🤔
What if we let this strand of snot overtake your sweet tea?
Nah
We’ll call it kombucha
Get out of my house
spoiler
I really like kombucha
I gotta figure out how to make it myself so I can have all the kimchi I want forever.
As I posted above YouTube Maangchi is a great resource for beginning fermentation. Also check out Sandor Katz from your local library.
Be warned though, 6 years ago I was a special ed instructor with a fermented foods curiosity. Today I am an under paid fermentation chef. It's a slippery slope.
Thanks, I’ll have to check it out. I’ve read through recipes and instructions before but never gotten my shit together and actually done it. For years I barely ever cooked anything complicated or requiring a recipe, but now I’m trying all sorts of stuff, so why not fermenting cabbage?
I love the communal metaphor of it all. Sharing fermented foods is literally sharing culture. I love thinking of the history of things like kefir grains, which all came from a single mother and have spread across the world. Sure, some people sell their grains but most people are happy and excited to share them for free. Same applies to kombucha scobys, beer yeasts, some sourdough mothers, etc
Korean groceries sell it by the gallons because older koreans often believe it extends your life. Or at least that's what my friend's Korean dad said. He might just be a hippie.
Kimchi and rice are minimum requirements for every Korean meal. A lot of restaurants just have it on the table like ketchup
If you google "kimchi cancer" you'll be left wondering if it causes it or prevents it.
South Korea has the 11th highest life expectancy in the world so I'm not too worried
That's wild, every other link was saying the opposite, which is it?
