Kobi's Kitchen

(Serves 12)
Kimchee is a type of spicy pickled vegetable, usually Napa Cabbage, that is unique to Korean cuisine. Outside of Korea, people who enjoy the taste of Kimchee will normally shy away from any attempt to prepare their own, for two reasons. Firstly, the ingredients are ‘unusual’, and secondly, they don’t want to wait of several weeks for Kimchee to mature. What I have here is a recipe that solves both these issues. Using this method, you can make your Kimchee in the morning and have it ready for dinner on the same day, using ingredients that you can find outside of Korea. 

Ingredients

• Mini Napa Cabbage (3)
• Garlic (minced, 6t)
• Toban Sauce
• Lingham’s Chilli Sauce
• Perilla Oil
• Hon Dashi
• Salt
• Dried Chilli Flakes (optional)

Preparation

1. Cut off the bottom of the mini nappa cabbages and manually detach each leaf from the cabbage. Discard any discoloured bits and rinse the leaves thoroughly.
2. Divide the leaves into 12 equal portions. Assemble one portion into a layer in a large colander and sprinkle a half T of salt evenly over the leaves. Stack the next portion of leaves on top and sprinkle another half T of salt. Repeat the process with the other 10 layers. Wait for the leaves to lose their turgidity.
3. In the meanwhile, put together the marinade. Dissolve 2t of Hon Dashi granules in 4T of hot water in a bowl. Add 2T of Perilla oil. Stir in 6t of Toban sauce (Chinese chili bean paste), 6t of minced garlic and 6T of Lingham’s Chilli Sauce. Mix well.
4. After about thirty minutes, the cabbage will be noticeably softer and will be able to bend without breaking. Do not go beyond forty-five minutes or wait till the leaves are totally limp, as they will become too salty. Rinse the cabbage leaves under the running tap until all the unabsorbed salt has been washed away. Allow the leaves to drip dry for a few minutes.

Preparation (Assembly)

1. Wash an airtight container that can hold 8 cups. You want to make sure the container is clean as you may be keeping the Kimchee in it for several weeks. The half gallon Ziploc boxes are ideal for this.
2. Apply a thin layer of the chili marinade to the bottom of the container. Arrange one layer of leaves in the container than then using a teaspoon, spread a little of the marinade onto each leaf, as shown in the picture above. Stack on the next layer and keep repeating until you have used up all the leaves and chilli marinade. It’s pretty much like making lasagne.
3. Cover the container with the lid and place it in the fridge. The liquid that is extracted from the cabbage by the chili marinade will only be halfway as high as the cabbage, so at the 3 hour mark flip the box over to give the top and bottom equal soaking time. After another 3 hours flip the box back to the upright position and your kimchee is ready.
4. This Kimchee can keep for several weeks if you use a fresh fork to take pieces out each time, and in fact will taste even better as it ages.

Notes

• What is it about this recipe that lets the Kimchee be ready in a day? The heavy dose of salt draws water out of the cabbage via osmosis and ruptures the cellular membranes making it much easier for flavour to enter the cabbage than if you left the vegetables to ferment naturally.
• What is Toban Sauce? It’s essentially a Chinese fermented chili bean paste. It’s already fermented, so you don’t need to wait for your Kimchi to ferment. It is found in every supermarket in Asia and in any Asian food store in the rest of the world. It can also be ordered online easily.
• Why did I specify Lingham’s Chilli Sauce? It is perfect for this recipe for a few reasons. It contains no starch, emulsifiers or preservatives, and also no tomato puree. What it does contain is vinegar which would normally come from fermenting the cabbage for a few weeks, and also lots of sugar, to balance out the saltiness from the salting process. In any case, whatever Chilli Sauce you end up using, make sure it is sweet.
• What if you have no Hon Dashi granules? These serve to add some umami as salt and sugar with chilli alone can be quite monotonous. The alternative is to use anchovies in oil. Heat a few anchovy fillets in the oil they came in, until you can mash the fish into a suspension. This can substitute for the Hon Dashi teaspoon for teaspoon.
• What if you have no Perilla Oil? You can use Sesame oil with some finely chopped mint leaves.
• What if I want the Kimchee to be more spicy? You first idea might be to increase the amount of Toban Sauce but this will make the Kimchee too salty. So add dried chilli flakes (the type that goes with pasta and pizza) to the marinade to increase spiciness instead.

(Serves 8)
Bakwan Kepiting is the quintessential soup of Peranakan Cuisine. This delicious clear broth with special ingredients like bamboo shoots and meatballs of pork and crab meat is a favourite with young and old alike. As a special treat over the Chinese New Year some families including my own add fish maw as a festive luxury to elevate this already exquisite soup to its ultimate incarnation. The fish maw gives the soup more body with its gelatine and also infuses an additional layer of seafood flavour. As with many other Peranakan recipes, Bakwan Kepiting is not the easiest to prepare and entails a higher level of labour, but in my opinion it’s well worth the effort.

Ingredients

• minced pork (300g)
• prawns (150g = 3 large or 6 medium)
• cooked crab meat (1 tub = 225g)
• boiled bamboo shoots (1 = 400g)
• pork bones (300g)
• fish maw (2 cups – optional)
• cabbage (half a head)
• shallots (10)
• garlic (half a bulb = 10 cloves)
• Chinese wine
• corn starch
• soy sauce
• fish sauce
• coriander seed powder.

Preparation (May be done ahead of time)

1. The first step is to prepare your Fish Maw. This can be done well in advance and kept it the freezer. I wrote a separate piece detailing what kind of fish maw to use, and how you should go about re-hydrating it. Please refer to this post. If you are using fish maw from the freeze, leave it to thaw for a few hours before using it. As mentioned in the intro, Fish Maw is an optional add on, and you can skip it altogether if you want to (but I’d recommend against it).
2. The second step is to boil the stock. Begin by boiling some water in large pot. When the water is boiling, add 1t of sugar and 2t of salt, then the pork bones one piece at a time. If you elect not to use fish maw for the soup, I suggest you add a few chicken wings to give the soup some extra body.
3. Shell and devein your prawns. Put the heads and shells into the boiling stock pot. Set the prawn meat aside in the fridge for later use.
4. Turn the fire down to a slow simmer. Peel 4 shallots and about 10 cloves of garlic and add them to the pot. Simmer for an hour or so and then pour the stock through a strainer. Discard all the solids and return the strained stock to the pot.

Preparation (Bamboo and Crab)

1. Cut the bamboo shoot into quarters as shown above. You will notice some white powdery substance in the core or ‘gills’ of the bamboo. This is dried resin, not poisonous or anything, but it ruins the texture and is impossible to wash away cleanly, so just cut away all the flaps and discard them.
2. After you have rinsed the 4 pieces of bamboo shoot, proceed to julienne them into strips that are about 0.5cm thick and wide. Given the irregular shape, you are bound to end up with irregular pieces, chop these up into little bits that will go into the meatballs; you should reserve half a cup of these bits. The julienned strips can go straight into the soup pot. If you are preparing the bamboo as the stock boils, remember to wait until after the stock has been strained.
3. Empty the tub of crab meat into a bowl and add 1 cup of water and 3T of Chinese wine. Stir until all the crab meat is loose and there are no clumps.
4. Peel the remaining 6 shallots. Dice three into tiny bits, and separately cut three into thin slices.
5. Heat 2T of oil in a frying pan and stir fry the shallot bits until they soften. Before the shallots begin to brown, pour all the soaking liquid of the crab meat into the soup pot through a strainer and add the crab meat into the frying pan. Stirring occasionally, pan fry the crab until all the residual liquid has evaporated. Keep the ‘freshened’ crab meat in the bowl for the time being.

Preparation (Meatballs)

1. In a small bowl, dissolve 1T of corn starch in 1/3 cup of water. Use your fingers to ensure the starch has dissolved completely. Add 1T soy sauce, 1T oil, 1T Chinese wine, 2t salt, 0.5t sugar and 0.5t white pepper. Mix well into a marinade.
2. Dice up your prawn meat with a knife or macerate it with a meat mallet.
3. Shape the minced pork roughly into a rectangle in the middle of a wooden cutting board. Spoon some of the marinade onto the pork, just enough that no liquid flows onto the board. Arrange the diced prawn meat evenly over the pork and proceed to pound the meat with a large, sharp, un-serrated knife. If you cannot hear the blade contact the board, you are not doing it hard enough or the minced meat is too thick. Systematically go lengthwise and then breadthwise (by turning the board) over all the meat on the board.
4. The meat will spread out after you have done this, so push it back into the ‘original’ position by scraping with the knife, then spoon on more marinade and flatten the surface with the side of the blade. Repeat (about 5 times) the above ‘pounding cum chopping’ procedure until you cannot discern the prawn meat and have used up all the marinade.
5. Arrange half of the crabmeat and all the bamboo bits evenly over the minced meat and then fold the edges over to encase all the loose bits.
6. Push the minced meat off the board into a large bowl. Fold and mix with a large spoon until your minced meat has the same appearance as below (about 1 minute).

Preparation (Soup)

1. Bring the soup to a boil and add 1t coriander seed powder, 1T fish sauce then reduce the heat to maintain a steady simmer. Add the fish maw at this stage if you are making the luxurious version. Top up with water as required.
2. Pan fry the shallot slices in 2T of oil. Stir occasionally until they begin to brown. Turn off the heat and let the shallots brown completely in the residual heat. Add both oil and shallots to the simmering pot.
3. Cut half a head of cabbage into 2 quarters. Remove the stem portions as a wedge and further cut each quarter into one inch wide blocks. Add the cabbage to the simmering pot as well.
4. Form the minced meat into large meatballs either using a mini ice-cream scoop, or using two soup spoons quenelle-style, or even with your bare hands. Do this next to the stove so you can put each meatball into the soup as soon as its formed, to ensure they keep their shape. The uneven cooking time will not matter. You may want to cook just one meatball first and taste it, in case the whole batch needs more seasoning.
5. Add the remaining cooked crab meat to the simmering pot.
6. When the final meatball has been boiled for 10 minutes, and the soup itself has been simmering for about half an hour, taste the soup and add salt and pepper as needed.

Notes

1. You might be asking – why not use a blender instead of chopping away with a knife? Well, the goal  is to remove all the air by filling in all the gaps, to create a dense ‘bouncy’ meatball. A blender will do the exact opposite and force more air into the mixture, in the same way egg whites expand when beaten. 
2. I find the cooked crab meat that comes in a plastic tub is good enough as long as you follow the procedure outlined. If you want to go boil your own crab instead and manually pick out the meat, by all means. The brown crab would be a good choice. I find cooked crab meat that comes in a can too ‘fishy’ and frozen crab meat too mushy, so avoid those types.
3. Some recipes use fish instead of prawn meat for the meatballs, this is the authentic way. However it only works with specific species of fish and prawn meat works just fine to give the meatballs their bounce, plus there is the added bonus of the flavour from the prawn heads.
4. As for the bamboo shoots, I have used a canned variety in the past and certain brands (Maling Winter Bamboo Shoots) are ok once you have rinsed them thoroughly, but others can be very pungent no matter what you do. Experiment and find the right brand ahead of time.
5. If you want to make your stock the night before, go ahead. Keeping deshelled prawns in the fridge for too long, even in a ziploc, is not a good idea, so you shouldn’t make the stock any earlier than that.
6. Depending on the family, various additional ingredients may be added when making the soup. I myself typically may add diced bean curd (the hard variety) and/or cuttlefish balls, just before I add the cabbage. These are both store-bought and don’t really require any extra work.
7. Do not make the mistake of tasting and adding salt to the soup along the way. The meatballs will add taste and make the soup more salty. 
8. You are supposed to garnish with chopped coriander leaves at the end, but some people don’t like the smell or taste of raw coriander, so I leave that choice up to you.