It's that time of the year again! The season when Korean women go all-out preparing Gim-jang Kimchi to last them and their families through the cold winter months. It's a lot of work, so many women choose to make a day-event of it with their friends and share the workload. This year, I offered to be my mom's helping hands.
A portion of the salted and squeezed Napa Cabbages
When I got to Cheonan, though, I found that my mom had already done the majority of the hard work, which is making the red pepper paste with all the other ingredients, and also cutting up the cabbages, salting them overnight, and then squeezing the excess water out of them. So I didn't do much else besides the best part, which is getting down and messy, rubbing and mixing the red pepper paste into the cabbages and radishes. :)
See the gigantic bowl of red pepper paste? That's for the non-vegan kimchi (contains fish/shrimp sauce). Then the smaller bowl in the middle is for my vegan kimchi. :)
Gotta wear gloves to prevent staining and stinking up your arms.
Sorry I don't have a recipe to go along with this post about how to make vegan kimchi. But if you do an online search, I'm sure you can pretty much follow any other kimchi recipe, but just leave out the fish sauce part. You should probably add more salt though, since the fish sauce is salty and helps to preserve the kimchi longer.
Anyway, I got two medium-sized containers of vegan gimjang kimchi. I hope this lasts me all winter!! Don't expect me to go burying it in the frozen ground though, like the Korean ancestors did. That's what modern fridges are for.
Next up, big kkakdugi (깍두기) made from big radishes...
And another type of radish kimchi...
Is your mouth watering yet? Mine is...
And finally, kimchi made from fresh leafy greens.
So yea, we made quite a few different kimchis, and in large quantity. Gimjang Kimchi season is serious stuff! And you gotta do it right, or you and your family are pretty much stuck with bad kimchi for the whole winter season.
It was hard work, but also a good time of mother-daughter bonding over kimchi. haha. But I couldn't help wondering whether I will really go through all this trouble when I am older... I don't know that I will have the motivation to do it on my own. I can see homemade gimjang kimchi becoming a lost tradition someday, as more and more of the younger families choose to skip the hassle and just buy their kimchi readymade. I guess only time will tell.
Long Live (vegan) Kimchi!