Cabbage and Pear Kimchi

Name: Cabbage and Pear Kimchi
Yield: makes about 4 cups
Ingredients: 1 head napa cabbage (1 1/2 to 2 pounds), cored and cut into 2-inch pieces; 1 tablespoon coarse kosher or sea salt; 1 Asian pear, cored and cut into 1/2-inch dice (do not peel); 1/4 cup Korean red chili powder; 6 cloves garlic, peeled; 2-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped; 2 tablespoons water; 2 teaspoons sugar; 2 teaspoons oyster sauce; 2 teaspoons Asian fish sauce

December 14, 2011

Like many food-oriented folk, I have a serious kimchi obsession going. But I didn’t want just any old kimchi recipe in this book. And I knew just where to turn in search of a recipe that has a little something extra: my friend Deb Samuels, cooking teacher and coauthor with Taekyung Chung of The Korean Table: From Barbecue to Bibimbap. Deb keeps up on all things Korean, and she told me that not only is it becoming more fashionable to salt kimchi less than traditional recipes call for, but also that the water-soaking process probably can be skipped entirely. She also said one of her favorites is a white kimchi with a main ingredient of Asian pear, which happened to already feature strongly in my Korean Short Rib Tacos (page 92). Why not try a kimchi with cabbage and pear together? Of course, she was right on the money. Look for Korean chili powder, which has a distinctive heat but a mellow, sweet undertone, in Asian supermarkets; for kimchi, there really is no substitute. Once you have your ingredients, this kimchi could hardly be simpler to make, and the slight sweetness and crunch it gets from the pear make it positively haunting. Besides using it on the tacos, use it on Kimchi, Ham, and Fried Egg Pizza (page 107) and Fried Rice with Cauliflower and Kimchi (page 136).

Recipe notes