MATERIALS YOU WILL NEED:
A big bowl/ovendish or containers to leave the cabbage in for salting
Enough preserving Jars (3-5, best to boil them before use)
Mixer (or Blender)
One big bowl
Rubber gloves

INGREDIENTS
1 chinese cabbage
200-300gr Salt (for preservability reasons its better not to use iodized salt, its fine to use that though- it only means you have to eat your kimchi faster)
For the vegan version: 20cm x 20cm piece of Kombu (Kombu or in korean Dasima is an algae which is used to make a tasty broth, if you cannot find it its also fine just to use the shitake)

1 shitake mushroom (If you can not find either- do not worry the kimchi is still gonna be tasty, its just tastier with it)

Non vegan version : 1Tbsp Fishsauce or salted fermented shrimp
1-3 Tbsp Rice starch/ Corn starch/ Potato starch (the broth/water after sitrring the starch in should be like soup)
1 Cup of Water
1 apple/ or a pear
1/2 white onion
1-3 garlic cloves (depending on how much you like garlic!)
1/2 thumb of ginger
2-4 Tbsp Chilliflakes (Gochugaru)
(depending on how spicy you like your kimchi)
(listen this is the most crucial part: if you want to create the genuine Kimchitaste buy chiliflakes from Korea (Chinese ones are also fine) !!! Chillies from different countries have a different taste)
1 Radish/ or Kohlrabi/ or 2 carrots rasped (optional! if you are to lazy you can leave these out as well)
2 springonions

I recommend the korean grocery store Shilla at gelderlandplein but also other chinese or japanese stores should have most of the stuff

RECIPE:

PHASE 1: Salting the Chinese cabbage
Quarter the Chinese cabbage, depending on the size of your glasses maybe cut the quarters again in half. For this cut in the stalk part and then pull apart. Wash.
Fold up the individual layers of cabbage, sprinkle each layer salt in each layer and knead the salted cabbage. The salt should go everywhere and I mean everywhere.
Put it in a large container- I use a big pot- while salting and leave it in there. If you have something heavy -I use another pot for this- you can put it on top of the salted cabbage.
HINT: Look at the cabbage before going to bed. Give it another lovely round of salt. After salting, try to turn the kimchi around twice before going to bed and stir around once more after waking up. So the salt gets everywhere.
NOTE: IN GENERAL USE A LOT OF SALT! A lot of people are afraid of using salt. Do not be!

The next morning when tasting the cabbage, it should not taste “good”.
BUT: If you are a person who is consuming kimchi fast- like me. It is fine to use less salt, because you want it to ferment faster and not last longer.

PHASE 2: Kimchipaste

Wash the cabbage well to remove the salt. The cabbage should taste salty!!! Drain for about 15 min.

For the vegan kimchi, for seasoning instead of fishsauce we use Kombu and Shitake (seaweed). Do not wash off the white deposits on them, they are pure flavor and needed for our broth. Only wipe with a dry cloth, boil 100-200 ml of cold water together with the shiitake mushroom and let simmer. Simmer on low heat for at least 15-20 minutes. Taste the broth- it should taste umami! Remove the alga and mushroom. Let the broth cool down!
This step can be skipped by the people who did not buy algae or shitake or are using fish sauce.

For the starch: Put 2-4 tbsp into the water or broth. Stir it in with a whisk, bring to a boil and cook over medium heat. Heat up and stir constantly. Then remove from heat and leave to cool. It should be glazy and not too thick!

During this time we can chop our spring onions into rings and radish or other vegetable you have into thin pieces!

Peel the garlic, pear/apple, ginger. Finely puree pear/apple, garlic in a food processor. Add your fish sauce if you have. puree. If you use a blender: passionate chopping helps. Above all
the ginger should not be in the form of pieces afterwards. Season the paste with garlic or ginger. Now put this paste into your starch soup and mix. Mix in the paste with Gochugaru /chili flakes. Then put in the spring onions and vegetables.

Because of the hotness of the paste, put on gloves to rub the cabbage with the kimchi paste really well. From the left, right, bottom, top, in the interspaces and put everything in a jar.
fill. Press lightly, leaving space at the top so that there is room for fermentation.
space for fermentation. It is also possible to make kimchi from larger pieces of vegetables (e.g. kohlrabi, leeks, whatever you can think of) or they can be added to the basic recipe of Chinese cabbage. Generally, any cabbage or cabbage-like vegetables can be made into kimchi. Here recipes always vary slightly.

PHASE 3: Fermentation
Wait and be patient... Or not ;) Actually a week in the refrigerator is more than enough. Or leave it one day outside and then put it into the fridge. Of course, you can eat it before- then it just has more of a fresh taste. During the week, you can try the kimchi and find out how it changes over the days! The longer it ferments, the stronger the taste!
And(!): if kimchi starts to turn sour: do not throw it away. Just fry it and eat it with rice.