Secret to making tasty kimchi is salting
.jpg?w=728)
Lee Sun-hee, assistant director of kimchi at the Sheraton Grande Walkerhill / Courtesy of Sheraton Grande Walkerhill
By Yun Suh-young
It's gimjang (seasonal practice of kimchi-making) season again. Beginning from mid-November through mid-December, Koreans start the collective practice of making kimchi which is a part of traditional culture as well as a way to prepare the household with staple fermented side dishes for another year.
Lee Sun-hee, assistant director of kimchi at the Sheraton Grande Walkerhill, has been researching and making kimchi for 18 years at the hotel. She shared her know-how with The Korea Times readers here to mark the beginning of gimjang season.
The Sheraton Grande Walkerhill’s kimchi research center, established in 1989, has been producing its own kimchi called "SUPEX kimchi" (SUPEX stands for "super excellent). It also has been holding a gimjang event annually since 2013.
What Lee considers the most important procedure in making kimchi is the salting process.
SUPEX kimchi / Courtesy of Sheraton Grande Walkerhill
"How you salt the cabbages before filling them with spice is the most important step in the process. Our method is to sprinkle salt directly onto the cabbages instead of dipping the cabbages into salted water. That way, we can adjust the overall saltiness to reach a balance," said Lee.
"If you dip them in salted water, then the thick stem of the cabbage will be less salty and the leaves will be more salty. This is bad for overall taste. You should sprinkle more salt onto the stem and less on the leaves so that the overall saltiness is even throughout."
The way to do this easily is to create two sheathes at the stem. After rinsing the cabbage leaves in water, cut the stem slightly, creating a shape like a cross. Then sprinkle a handful of salt from the stem all the way to the leaves, but put more salt on the stem than on the leaves. Then sprinkle salt in between the individual leaves for them to be well pickled. Next, place the salted cabbages into a container, add water up to two thirds of the container and place a heavy item on top of the leaves to add pressure. Leave it like this for a day until they reach a soft, wobbly state and then add filling the next day. If the cabbage leaves are thoroughly pickled, there is no need to add too much filling.
"If the salting was done in the evening, leave it until the next morning and then start filling the cabbages with sauce," says Lee.
"The secret to our sauce is the inclusion of the following ingredients to the basic kimchi filling: pickled shrimp, freshwater shrimp, meat stock and pear. Adding meat stock supplements the lack of protein while freshwater shrimp adds a refreshing taste."
When the cabbages are all seasoned with filling, they are placed inside earthen jars. Another key point here is to add unseasoned white radishes inside the jars with the kimchi.
"We initially placed white radishes for the refreshing taste of the kimchi, but later the radish itself became tasty. The seasoning penetrated into the radish and created another type of kimchi."
Gimjang is as easy as that. It only takes two days to prepare kimchi for storage and the rest of the process is left to fermentation.
Lee's team of 10, who are dedicated to making kimchi at the hotel, repeats this procedure every other day as they mass-produce kimchi for their customers and for export. Many of the procedures are done by hand even though the hotel is equipped with high-tech facilities.
"There are things that machines can't do. The amounts of salt and seasoning to be filled in the cabbages are all left to the hands of our staff. We follow a manual so that we can produce kimchi that will be good all year," said Lee.
In an effort to share the gimjang recipe and method, Walkerhill will hold a gimjang event this Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for anyone who makes a reservation (02-455-5000)