Making Red Cabbage Kimchi (Baechu-kimchi (배추김치) Step 1/4

Step #1: Choosing and Prepping the vegetable

So, let’s begin with choosing and prepping your vegetable.

When you pick your cabbage choose Napa cabbage. This cabbage is readily available in most super markets and has a high-water content along with a firm structure. Ideally you want to choose green leaves, (yellow is fine) that are without much bruises or tears. Avoid wilted-looking cabbage and instead choose firm and juicy-looking cabbage.

Cabbage is at its peak season in the fall. This means it is at its most flavorful and delicious. Pickled and fermented foods taste best when they are made using vegetables that are in their peak season.

Let’s now breakdown the steps needed for prepping the cabbage.

1. The first step is to thoroughly clean the cabbage. Wash and soak the cabbage shortly to remove all visible dirt. Wash it 2-3 times. Now, it’s not technically necessary to wash your cabbage because after we brine the cabbage, we will wash it really well. But I think it is better to wash your cabbage of all visible dirt, especially if it is organic and extra dirty.
2. The second step is trimming the cabbage. Now that the cabbage is all clean you can trim the base of the cabbage. The base in the bottom part of the cabbage that sticks out slightly. Trim the base by slicing a thin layer off with your knife. This slice should not disconnect all the cabbage leaves in the bundle, only a few outer leaves should fall off. Do not cut the whole bottom off so that all the cabbage leaves are all separated. After trimming, a few outer leaves may have come off, if there are any other wilted or bruised outer leaves then remove them at this time. If the outer leaves are fine and just fell off then you can save them and brine them with the cabbage. We can use those loose outer brined leaves later to seal the top of the kimchi in the container.
3. Finally, you can split the base of the cabbage and pull the cabbage apart into two halves. Remember to split the base of those two halves while keeping them intact, do not pull them apart. You should now have two halves with a split in the stem.

The cabbage is prepped this way for a reason. By having the two halves of cabbage with the split in the bottom, the salt can get into the more solid base/firm area of the cabbage.