Kimchee for the Ketchup Mouthed

I discovered two years ago, that making saurkraut was easy~~at least for me. I've had other remarks from friends and family when they tried out my recipes. 

SO, your mileage my vary.

Ever since I started reading about fermented vegetables I loved the idea of kimchee, cabbage, ginger, garlic, onion, hot peppers. What's not to love? Well, the hot peppers for one, I'm rather a devout ketchup mouth and my tummy is even more rigid in its rules. Too much heat and we're miserable together in one body. So I've never got past smelling commercial kimchees. After getting Wild Fermentation for Christmas I realized I could make kimchee at the mild end of the scale. 

But, we're out of cabbage, so the cabbage was bought along with the ginger and garlic. I forgot to buy a hot pepper that day, so used chile powder. 

1lb cole slaw mix in a bag

1medium onion finely chopped

1 tblsp grated ginger root

5 cloves garlic

1 tsp chile powder 

1 tblsp salt

Put the cole slaw mix in a mixing bowl. 

Peel and chop the onion, add to bowl. 

Peel and grate the ginger root, add to bowl. 

Peel and chop the garlic, add to bowl.

Add tsp of chile powder  and tblsp of salt to bowl.

Mix, then stuff mixture into wide mouth quart jar. 

Pound mixture till juice comes with a wooden spoon.

When the juice comes up over the vegetables, tuck a piece of plastic down on top of the vegetables to mostly exclude air. 

Lay the lid and ring on top of the jar.

Leave it on the kitchen counter and push the vegetables down under the juice every day. In about a week it will ferment and become kimchee. Sour, salty, aromatic, delicious. 

And beautiful.