By Jane Hayes / Garden Jane and Pam Jackson
I love cabbage and have since childhood. One of my favourite cabbage memories is of cabbage soaked in lemon, perfectly salted and wrapped in pita. I bought this delicious snack almost daily from a grandmotherly Greek woman who ran a tiny cookshack in London, England many years ago. This post is for her and for all the other cabbage lovers I’ve met since.
Kimchi Recipe
1 medium or large head of Napa cabbage
3-4 daikon radishes
4-6 apples
9 Tablespoons of ginger root (or more!)
4-6 medium onions
4 hot peppers (for a mildly spicy recipe, 6-8 for a spicier batch)
9 cloves of garlic (or more!)
Sea salt
4 1 Litre mason jars with lids
Option 1
This is a condensed version of a Sandor Katz recipe (Wild Fermentation). His fermenting research and recipes are amazing, so check it out if you’re interested in learning more.
- Make a brine by boiling 2 Litres of water and dissolving 8 Tbs of salt into the water. Make more brine if need be.
- Shred cabbage; grate daikon, apple and ginger; finely chop onion and hot pepper; crush garlic and mix
- Add the vegetables to the brine and let sit for a few hours or overnight. Taste the mix. It should be fairly salty, but if it is too salty you can rinse it a little. If it needs more salt, add a little.
- Take the vegetable mix out of the brine and press into jars. Add some brine to top it off and compress as many of the floating bits as you can under the water. Close the lid.
- Leave on the counter for a week and tend by pushing the floating bits back down under the brine every day.
- Put into the fridge after about a week.
Option 2
I’ve revised Sandor’s approach with feedback from another fermenter. I skip using water and making brine all together. Instead I directly salt the mix (with about 4 Tablespoons of salt for the above recipe) and press it into jars right away. Within minutes the water in the cabbage and other vegetables starts to make a liquid in the jars. I press it down and taste every day as per steps 4 and 5 above.
Further notes:
- If the kimchi smells sour or off, throw it out. This happens once in awhile!
- If the kimchi is too salty, you can rinse it a little. It is usually eaten with other foods that are less salty, so take that into consideration.
Feedback on this recipe is welcome at hayes@gardenjane.com
Tips for Growing Cabbage
- Cabbages require lots of space, regular feeding, full sun and lots of water. Since cabbages need a lot of space, consider sticking to kale if you don’t have a big garden (more on kale next month!).
- Sow seeds indoors ½ cm deep and 5 cm apart 8-10 weeks before last frost. Set out hardened seedlings when they are 4-6 weeks old and transplant seedlings into the garden about 45 cm apart.
- Add 2 inches of compost along with some sheep manure to start them off and feed them every few weeks with compost tea or top-dress with compost once a month.
- Cabbage does better in slightly cooler temperatures, so when it gets hot, make sure to water well and keep roots moist by mulching.
- Note that early cabbages do well in a sandy loam and later cabbages need a heavier moisture retaining soil.
- Cabbage moths and butterflies are the most common pests for cabbage. Deter these by planting strongly scented plants around them (e.g. lavender, marigolds, mint, garlic, onions) and consider putting a row cover over young plants to deter butterflies from laying eggs.
Enjoy!