If you're like me, who consider yourself a potential snob at everything you come into contact with (yet you'll never let it slip), then you'll most likely cringe at the thought of grocery store prepared anything, especially when it comes to ethnic foods, such as kimchi. I mean, who doesn't like kimchi and wishes one had jars of it in the fridge so one can eat it straight from the jar like peanut butter? More awesomely, kimchi is made mostly of cabbage. Which makes it essentially a SALAD. (And you thought you could pat yourself on the back for upgrading to sorbet.)To create the perfect kimchi for the lazy is simple; I have come up with the sacred union between self-indulgent purism and practicality in the art of kimchi making. It's an exact science. (Complete list of ingredients at the end of post.)
To create the best kimchi, you'll need a healthy head of napa cabbage. I'd suggest a medium sized head. Rinse, cut into small pieces approx. 1 x 2 inches.
Then take 1/3 cup of salt, sprinkle evenly over the cabbage, and put on a sandwich glove and rub/knead the leaves for a minute. (Korean sea salt would be optimal, but my lazy self just used normal fine salt.)
Once the leaves become wilted, next we will make the kimchi marinade sauce. This requires half an onion, diced; one crispy Korean pear (may substitute with Anjou pear; if you really don't have any pear, apple will do too); a piece of ginger, and a head of garlic, peeled. 
Then we'll make some stock that will go into the blending of the sauce. I recommend making the stock using either frozen seafood, dried fish, or shrimp. Or anything from the ocean that will give the stock an umami taste. I had a bag of frozen assorted seafood, so I grabbed a bunch and boiled it with a cup of water. Looks like some calamari, mussels/clam/various shellfish.
While the stock is in the making, chop up a few stalks of green onion, a bunch of leek, and some daikon. This part really depends on your personal picky palate. If you like crunch, then daikon is a must. If you like the herbal oniony-ness of allium plants, then double up on the green onion. I've had baby bok-choy in kimchi and it totally worked too, just so long as the main ingredient is Napa cabbage.
Put the diced onion and pear into a blender; press garlic and grate ginger over it. When the stock is done, add the liquid to everything else and VROOOOOOM.
The white puree should fill up a
medium sized bowl. Add a cup of korean chili flakes, adjust according to
your spiciness tolerance. Then add approximately three tablespoons of
Korean fish sauce, and Korean vinegar. May substitute with rice vinegar,
but Korean fish sauce is essential.
The result is a warm bowl of vermilion pulpy mass.... there ought to be a "kimchi sauce test" a la the cinnamon test.
Now we can return to the salt-rubbed cabbage. Using a gloved hand, squeeze out as much liquid as you can, placing the squeezed cabbage into a big mixing bowl.
Toss in the green onion, leek, and daikon, and add about half of the kimchi sauce.
Using a gloved hand (unless you want a hydrating kimchi mask for your hand), rub the sauce all over the vegetable.
Purty, ain't she?
Press the kimchi tightly into jars; mix about two tablespoons with half a cup of water and pour it over the kimchi. I'd recommend using glass containers, since kimchi stains plastic permanently. Unless you want your Tupperware to reek of garlic till the end of humanity, use glass. This makes about a quart and half.
Let it pickle for two to three days, and it will have just the right amount of crunch and flavor.
Happy kimching!
Ingredients:
- Napa cabbage, 1 medium head
- Green onion, 3-4 stalks
- Leek, 1/2 a stalk
- Daikon, 1 medium
- Ginger root, 1 medium piece
- Garlic, one head
- Yellow onion, 1/2
- Pear (Korean), 1 medium
- Frozen seafood/shrimp/fish, a few small pieces
- Korean chili flakes, 1 cup
- Korean fish sauce, 3 tbsp
- Korean vinegar or rice vinegar, 3 tbsp
