Sometimes you find a kimchi recipe, sometimes a kimchi recipe finds you. And how lucky are we that Randall Park of Fresh Off The Boat has shared his homemade kimchi recipe with us. Time to get funky, y’all.
Make sure to listen to Randall talking about his incredible parents — and the origins of this kimchi — on our podcast here. And if you’re not subscribe, subscribe!
A transformation will take place.
Randall Park’s Kimchi Recipe
Feel closer to the motherland with Randall Park's homemade kimchi recipe.
Ingredients
- 2 large napa cabbages
- 2 bunches of green onion
- 1 cup sea salt
- 6 cups water
- 1 cup gochu flakes (Korean red pepper)
- 1/3 cup saeujeot (Korean salted shrimp)
- 1 tablespoon sweet rice flour
- 1 more cup of water
- 1/3 tablespoon fish sauce
- 1 knob of ginger peeled
- 2 tablespoons sugar
Instructions
- Quarter the length of the cabbage and then cut each quarter into 1-2 inch bite sized sections. Toss away the ends. Place all the cabbage pieces into a large bowl.
- In another bowl, stir a cup of sea salt into 6 cups of water, and then pour the salt water over the cabbage pieces. Let the cabbage sit, immersed in the salt water for a few hours.
- In the meantime, put all this stuff into a blender: gochu flakes, 1 cup of water, saeujeot, sweet rice flour, fish sauce, ginger, and sugar. Blend it until it is a thick red paste.
- Once the cabbage has sat in the salt water for a couple hours, remove the water, and rinse out the cabbage pieces. Chop up the green onions and throw it into the bowl with the cabbage. You can also throw in carrots or daikon, but I like to keep it simple.
- Then mix in the red paste. Make sure all of the cabbage pieces are well coated. (I like to do it with my hands, because it makes me feel closer to the motherland.)
- Then press the kimchi into a fermentation jar or a stone crock or wherever you want to have your kimchi spend the night.
- Then, find a room temperature place to leave the kimchi overnight and let it ferment. (At this point, I like to drink liquor, because it makes me feel closer to the motherland.)
- The next day, it should be ready to go. Enjoy it, put it in a jar, put that jar in plastic bag, tie that bag tightly, and then put that bag in the fridge (preferably its own fridge, because you don’t want it near the milk, unless you want your milk tasting and smelling like kimchi. Remember, kimchi is powerful and invasive, like my parents.) And that’s it!
- Enjoy with all things Korean, and also everything else.
Posted by Randall Park
Randall Park is an actor, writer, and director. The Korean-American Mash-Up stars in Fresh Off The Boat. You can also catch him on Veep and in 2018's Ant-Man and the Wasp. He is currently developing a romantic comedy for Netflix with Ali Wong. You can follow him on Twitter @parkrandall.
