Make Kim Chee: Pickling Vegetables Safely

[Monique]

Has anyone experience with doing this? I wonder whether I can make the following recipe.. without poisioning anyone.

Kim Chee

1 large head chinese (celery or Nappa) cabbage
Salt
4 green onions (including tops)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 dried hot red chili (about 2" long), crushed
1 tsp fresh ginger, grated


1.) Cut cabbage into pieces, 1-inch long and 1-inch wide.
2.) Sprinkle 2 Tbs salt on cabbage, mix well, and let stand 15 minutes.
3.) Cut green onions in 1-1/2 inch lengths, then cut lengthwise in thin
slices. Wash salted cabbage three times with cold water. Add the onions,
garlic, chili, ginger, 1 Tbs salt and enough water to cover. Mix well.
Cover and let stand for a few days.
4.) Taste mixture every day. When it is acid enough, cover and refigerate
up to 2 weeks. Makes about 1 quart.

 

[Evo]

Has anyone experience with doing this? I wonder whether I can make the following recipe.. without poisioning anyone.

Sounds yummy. I've never made sauerkraut before but I watched Alton Brown on the Good Eats cooking show make it. He didn't seem concerned about letting it ferment. Just don't use that cheap pan of yours.

 

[Monique]

The recipe above is Korean KimChee, fermented spicy cabbage with garlic... my favorite snack food

 

[iansmith]

I would make sure the water is sterile and the fermeting bowl is properly sanitized. The fermenting organims should be naturally occurring bacteria from the cabbage no something you introduce. It will probably not poison you since the fermenting bacteria should be the dominant flora due to the salt content and as time goes on, the forming acid will prevent most microorganism from growing. The only problem might be the incubation temperature. Room temperature (around 20C) might be to high and allow other organism to grow. 15C should be more appropriate.

This how to make sauerkraut.
You add salt to sliced cabbage. Salt should be 2% w/w.
You mix the salt and the cabbage so that it is disperse evenly. This will make the cabbage sweat and it will make the cabbage soft. (Tip aside: if your making homemade coleslaw, you should add salt to make the cabbage more soft)
You put a FDA-approved sanitized plastic bucket. Other container might contain antimicrobial agent which will prevent grow of organism or the plastic might be toxic.
Put a sanitized lid that fits in the bucket. Put pressure of the lid so the liquid extracted will rise above the lid. Cover the bucket so no stuff fall in the water. It will not contaminated your sauerkraut but fungi on top does look appetizing.
Incubate at 15C for about two months (around 7-10 weeks).
Before removing the lid from the bucket, the top layer of water should be removed.

The sauerkraut is now ready to eat and to be stored at 4C.

 

[Evo]

I would make sure the water is sterile and the fermeting bowl is properly sanitized. The fermenting organims should be naturally occurring bacteria from the cabbage no something you introduce. It will probably not poison you since the fermenting bacteria should be the dominant flora due to the salt content and as time goes on, the forming acid will prevent most microorganism from growing. The only problem might be the incubation temperature. Room temperature (around 20C) might be to high and allow other organism to grow. 15C should be more appropriate.

This how to make sauerkraut.
You add salt to sliced cabbage. Salt should be 2% w/w.
You mix the salt and the cabbage so that it is disperse evenly. This will make the cabbage sweat and it will make the cabbage soft. (Tip aside: if your making homemade coleslaw, you should add salt to make the cabbage more soft)
You put a FDA-approved sanitized plastic bucket. Other container might contain antimicrobial agent which will prevent grow of organism or the plastic might be toxic.
Put a sanitized lid that fits in the bucket. Put pressure of the lid so the liquid extracted will rise above the lid. Cover the bucket so no stuff fall in the water. It will not contaminated your sauerkraut but fungi on top does look appetizing.
Incubate at 15C for about two months (around 7-10 weeks).
Before removing the lid from the bucket, the top layer of water should be removed.

The sauerkraut is now ready to eat and to be stored at 4C.

Yes, that is exactly how Alton did it on tv!

I think I am going to try Monique's Kim Chee recipe, it sounds pretty easy and yummy. I love anything cabbage.

 

[Moonbear]

My grandparents used to make sauerkraut in their basement, and I'm sure it wasn't in an FDA approved bucket. Then again, I'm sure if it was infested with harmful bacteria, they'd have thought feeding it to me was just the way to build up my immune system. My grandmother overcooks everything anyway, so no risk of any bacteria surviving her cooking!

Considering kimchee is usually made in clay pots buried in the ground, I suspect whatever you do will be more sanitary than that. But, yes, as iansmith pointed out, usually these things are fermented in basements or otherwise underground, so a bit cooler than room temperature.

 

[Entropy]

I've never made sauerkraut before but I watched Alton Brown on the Good Eats cooking show make it.

Oh! Thats my favorite cooking show! Me and my family love it. I like how he puts a science twist on cooking.

 

[Evo]

Oh! Thats my favorite cooking show! Me and my family love it. I like how he puts a science twist on cooking.

I love that show! He's funny, informative and the recipes are good. His scientific re-enactments crack me up. I cooked my best turkey ever after watching his Thanksgiving show.

 

[Polly]

I have recently tried pickling vegetable myself with the basics from a vegetable vendor. It is really easy.

1. Chop vegetable to bite size, allowing for shrinkage.
2. Scald in boiling water.
3. Leave to cool and drain.
4. Leave in vinegar with crystal sugar for 2 nights.

As a result I am a proud owner of 3 jars of pickled cucumber, white carrot and bitter gourd.

 

[The_Professional]

Now I'm hungry. Back home we usually eat pickled veggies with fried chicken

Too bad with this stomach flu I can only dream eating all the fried stuff

 

[Polly]

Aren't you a poor baby Propro! If I have a condition like that I am automatically put on diet of rice congee with soya sauce/white sugar.

 

[Monique]

I would make sure the water is sterile and the fermeting bowl is properly sanitized. The fermenting organims should be naturally occurring bacteria from the cabbage no something you introduce.

Ok, good tip.. I'll boil the water before using it, although I don't think there will be any harmful bacteria in the pipelines. I guess I will try it when I my water is back online (my bf replaced the showertap, but now the hot water pipeline has a huge crack in it with water pooring out :uhh:).

So what would be the risk of botulism poisoning? :yuck:

from a website:

Canning is the most dangerous method of food preservation, due to the danger of Botulism poisoning from canned food. An organism that grows on food without air, producing a toxin, can cause Botulism poisoning. Always boil home canned food such as tomatoes for at least 15 minutes before tasting; the boiling destroys Botulism toxin if present. Thoroughly cleaning the food and jars before canning, and the presence of acidity and salt in the jar, helps prevent the Botulism organism from growing.

We have been eating home canned tomatoes for many years without any problem; after opening a jar the tomatoes are always boiled for 15 minutes before tasting. http://www.farm-garden.com/primers/42/

 

[Monique]

Ooh, this also is a recipe I'd like to try:

PICKLED GINGER I
2 large ginger roots
1 cup rice vinegar
5-7 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt

Peel the ginger root. Cut the ginger into medium-sized pieces and salt it. Leave the ginger in a bowl for 30 min. Put the ginger into a jar.

Mix rice vinegar and sugar in a pan and bring to a boil. Pour the hot mixture of vinegar and sugar on the ginger. Cool, then cover with a lid and place in the refrigerator. In a week, the ginger change its color to light pink. The pickled ginger lasts about a month in the fridge.

I :!) pickled ginger

 

[iansmith]

You should of read a bit below and you would of found that salt, cold and acidity prevent botulism from growing. There some exception for the cold temperature but no exception for salt and acidity.

To be on the safe side you should make sure no soil is on the cabbage and other ingredient. If botulism is present, it will come from the soil.

 

[Monique]

You should of read a bit below and you would of found that salt, cold and acidity prevent botulism from growing. There some exception for the cold temperature but no exception for salt and acidity.

Yes, but the acidity in the recipe comes from the fermentation: there's no vinegar at the start of the preparation. Also, I'm not sure whether 1 tbsp salt/ liter water would be antibacterial, or just for flavour.

To be on the safe side you should make sure no soil is on the cabbage and other ingredient. If botulism is present, it will come from the soil.

Ok, that's good to know :)

 

[MathematicalPhysicist]

i wonder if you can make someone eat this :grumpy:

 

[Moonbear]

Monique, whenever I used to can stuff (back when I still lived with my parents, so it's been a while), all the veggies got washed very thoroughly, and the jars they were going into were washed then boiled to clean them BEFORE adding the veggies and finishing the canning process. Most people don't bother boiling the jars first, but it was an extra precaution we took to make sure we were starting out with clean jars. The pressure cooking should have killed everything, but in your case, since you aren't cooking to make the kimchee, you might consider boiling your jars. And yes, when we made pickles, we boiled the water before using it (though that was also to add the brine hot to really infuse the pickles we were making). When my grandparents made sauerkraut in big buckets in the basement, I think they had them lined with plastic bags of some sort (maybe that's more sanitary than a reused bucket) and I recall the top of the contents being covered with cheesecloth, probably to keep anything from "falling" in whenever they opened the lid to check the sauerkraut's progress. I had forgotten until now all those added precautions.

Also, if you're going to be tasting the kimchee to decide when to stop fermenting it and move it to the fridge, make absolutely certain you're sticking a clean spoon into it (I'd at least boil that before using it too). You don't want to introduce bacteria from your hands or from a spoon into it (even if the spoon is clean and washed, well, you work in a lab and know that doesn't mean there are no bacteria on it at all...they aren't harmful to you to use the spoon, but I'm not sure what happens when you add them to a fermenting mixture in a jar).

 

[Evo]

I :!) pickled ginger

Oooh, I do too! I always buy those little cups of it they sell in the sushi section of the grocery store.

 

[brewnog]

Always boil your jars, spoons, lids etc! Otherwise go to a brewing shop and get some chemical disinfectant for brewing and winemaking.

 

[Echo 6 Sierra]

Many years ago when I was living in Japan, I was on a working party that basically had to tear apart a warehouse and open every 50-cube box there was to find what was making the horrible smell. Turned out to be a clay pot of kimchee someone smuggled back from Korea and it had broken in transit. Haven't been able to stomach it since. :yuck: :yuck: :yuck: I LUUUUUV pickled cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, and jalapenos. My fav-o-rite is those crispity-crunchity-garlicy-spicy ones the stork brings.

 

[The_Professional]

Aren't you a poor baby Propro! If I have a condition like that I am automatically put on diet of rice congee with soya sauce/white sugar.

Aren't I?

I'm on a diet of toasted bread, skinless chicken, cereals, some rice..no meats, dairy, chocolate, oils, and sauces of any kind though :grumpy:

 

[Polly]

*kisses Propro to make him well again*

 

[tribdog]

Everytime I pickle vegetables it is on accident. Especially those damn salads in a bag. I'll go to make myself a salad a few days after opening the bag and surprise Kim Chee.

 

[Moonbear]

Oh, that's right, one more very important thing to remember when pickling anything...don't let tribdog anywhere near it or you'll be poisoned for sure! (Note to self: If tribdog offers kimchee, RUN!)