Kimchi Dumplings

I made kimchi dumplings today with the kimchi I made earlier this month! This was concocted the way I always make things...I threw everything I had on hand and thought would be nice together. It yielded 25 dumplings.

 For this recipe I used:

• 1/2 cup of kimchi (my home made kimchi was very salty so I didn't add any salt to mine.)
• Roughly 450 grams of ground pork
• Dumpling skins
• 1 carrot
• 3 cloves of garlic
• Minced onion 
• sprinkling of white pepper
• About a table spoon of sesame oil

Once all the ingredients were assembled I mixed it all together...

Put about 1 1/2 tablespoons of the mixture into the dumpling wrappers and used my mom's ancient Chinese crumpling technique. A super nifty friend helped me make a few of them, they turned out beautifully too.  

Steamed them for 15-20 minutes, and pan fried them

This is the end result and I also made a semi-sweet dipping sauce with soy sauce, vinegar (I'm partial to using balsamic now, but at home in CO I use rice vinegar), sesame oil, garlic, ginger, chili oil and a teaspoon of sugar.

This isn't how I normally make my dumplings but this is how I made kimchi dumplings today. Normally I use a mixture of nappa cabbage and kimchi but I didn't go to the store today...But they turned out rather good. I wish there was more veg in it though. Often times I omit the onion and put in about a teaspoon of ginger and green onions.

First post - Kimchee

Hello all!


This is my first and possibly only blog post. Hopefully it's good.

I made Kimchi today! Kimchi is a fermented vegetable dish that is a staple to Korean food. It's too expensive to buy in The Netherlands, like most foods. So, I decided to make it myself. Most kimchi is made with nappa cabbage but it can be made with a variety of vegetables. 

As you can see I made mine with nappa cabbage as well, I chopped it up in about 1 1/2 chunks. I also used daikon radish, carrots and green onions for pickling. The fish sauce, chili peppers, garlic and ginger were all for the pickle seasoning (pickling sauce). I also used rice flour, sugar and water to make a paste so that the seasoning would cling to the vegetables. 

First, I had one head of nappa cabbage that I chopped up, washed in cold water and then drained. After draining I salted the cabbage (about 1 cup of kosher salt) and mixed it throughout nappa and let it sit for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours so the cabbage would lose its water content.

During that time I started to make the sauce for the seasoning. I started with 1 cup of water and 1/6 cup of rice flour, mixing it on medium - low heat for 5 minutes until the mixture got thick and sticky. This is how it looked. I also added about a 1/2 table spoon of sugar to the mixture right before I took it off the heat. It's really a runny mixture until it hits about 2 minutes and starts boiling then it gets really goopey. After it became really sticky I let it cool down completely.

 I also minced about 1/2 cup of garlic (1/2 head of garlic) and 1 inch of ginger into a large container. I could only find a large pot to mix everything in.

 Next I combined my ginger/garlic mixture with the rice flour mixture and added 1/3 cup of fish sauce.

 Next was 1 cup of Chili flakes

 Mixed those until it looked like chili vomit

 I then sliced the carrot and daikon that I'd add in with the cabbage into match sticks

I got a really big daikon. I think I'll make Lo Bak Go (turnip cake) with it tomorrow...

 And just sliced the green onion.

 Next I rinsed the cabbage. You're supposed to do it really well. The kitchen was a bit of a mess and I fear I didn't give the cabbage the attention it needed. My kimchi was too salty. SO I suggest you don't fuck around with this step. Really rinse this cabbage!

 I then put everything into the pot...

 Mixed it all.

And this is what I got.