We had a lot of surplus Joichoi at the farm recently, which had mainly fallen pray to hungry slugs and so was too munched to include in our stir fry bags. Kev put it to great use and made Kimchi out of it in his crock jar. Traditionally, kimchi is a Korean pickled cabbage dish but you can use a variety of sturdy leaves to create your own variations. We thought we’d share his technique in case you have Joichoi in abundance in your garden or allotment, or just fancy having a go!
Start by thoroughly washing your Joichoi and chop into segments 0.5 to 1cm wide on the stem & wider on the leaves.
Put it into a crock jar, adding pinches of crushed sea salt as you go. It’s good to crunch the chopped Joichoi with your hand as you go as this helps the water to start coming out. Keep stirring around with your hand to distribute the salt. When the jar is full put the weighting stones on top & press down.
Put on the lid & add water to the mote to create an air seal. The jar has a higher side that you should line up with one of the cut outs in the lid, as this is where the bubbles will escape when the mix start to ferment.
Leave over night for the water to come out by osmosis.
The next day you can prepare the other ingredients. In the last batch I put the largest piece of ginger I could find, two and a half bulbs of peeled garlic cloves, four scotch bonnet but you could use any chillies. You can whiz these ingredients up in a food processor for speed.
Remove the lid gently so as not to slosh the sealing water into the jar.
If things have gone well, when you take off the lid and look inside you should see that the water has risen up over the Joichoi. If not press down the stones and it should rise enough.
In any case, remove the stones and stir in the extra ingredients.
Replace the stones and press down. Then, replace the lid and check daily that the water seal has not dried up. If it going well regular bubbles should be escaping from the jar.
If the water is not bubbling, check the height of the water again at the end of the day and push the stones down again to help it rise.
When it stops bubbling its done!
With thanks to Healthy Harvest Farm and the Korean Food Gallery for the images as we were cameraless the day of Kev’s creation.