Yin Yang

Success and Failure

I sometimes think I carry an ancient curse around with me. I discover something amazing and it promptly disappears. Perhaps it’s an aspect of that universal rule that fills the world with an abundance of something, until you want some, when it promptly vanishes from the face of the Earth.

My delight at discovering Korea Foods in Mitcham was short lived. On most of my visits I was the only person in the cavernous warehouse - apart from the staff. This did not bode well. On the last visit I was cheerfully and politely informed by the young woman at the checkout that they’d be closing on Sunday and I was welcome to visit them in New Malden. “But I’ve just found you!” I wailed.

Either the people of Mitcham have no taste or - I suspect - there were a lot of people like me who didn’t even know the place was there. I wonder how many other enterprises fail due to a lack of blowing their own trumpet. Now think on…

Oh My Seoul!

I can officially declare The Great Kimchi Experiment a success. It’s been doing its stuff for just over six weeks now and I’ve sampled it regularly during the process. It seems to have settled into a stable state - having gone through the “crazy” stage (as one Korean grandmother called it) when I thought it was destined for the bin.

On my last visit to Korea Foods I bought a pack of poggi kimchi to compare and contrast and the verdict was - as usual when homemade is pitched against manufactured - homemade triumphs every time.

The stainless steel milk churn container that seduced me proved to be impractical as long term storage - partly because it took up too much space in the fridge and partly because it’s not entirely airtight and the stench was tainting everything else in there - in the same way an over ripe Camembert does.

I was going to invest in some Kilner (Mason) jars but a brainwave had me heading for Lidl. I have a variety of dry ingredients stored in dill pickle jars but I didn’t have enough to house the kimchi. A jar of dill pickles is half the price of a Kilner jar and you get dill pickles free inside! Bonus! The pickles are now happily resident in the milk churn (which also makes for easy and healthy grazing) and the kimchi is in the pickle jars, in the fridge - which now smells like a regular fridge. Sorted.

Kimchi is great as an accompaniment but fantastic in soup. Plop it in a few minutes before you serve so it retains its crunch. The soup dampens the kimchi’s fire and is suffused with that certain kimchi je ne sais quoi.

I’ll definitely make some more once I’ve munched my way through this lot. It’s one of those things you can fiddle with until you have your own style.

Seoul Food

This morning I made a bucketful of kimchi[1] or I hope I did. My first attempt at making sauerkraut was not too successful - not enough salt perhaps - but later batches were excellent. Much better than anything I’ve bought.

I read about kimchi years ago - probably on the Korea Foods website - and bought a small pack. I don’t remember being particularly enamoured of the experience, my abiding memory is of its incendiary nature.

Kimchi was on my shopping list when we visited the new Mitcham branch of Korea Foods, determined to give this legendary food another try. We were cruising the aisles when Marie pointed to a gallon sized clear plastic bucket containing what appeared to be anatomy. “What’s that?” she grimaced. “Just what I’m looking for!” I grinned, “Kimchi, the national food of Korea”. I picked up a smaller jar, just in case.

I don’t know what the last lot was but this was delicious, the rate it disappeared at was ample evidence. We both declared it addictive.

I had an infobinge on The WelkinReticulum[2] for recipes and discovered a few gems. Koreans have the same attitude to buying kimchi that I have to mayonnaise and humous (amongst other things) “You don’t buy it, you make it. The stuff in the shops isn’t even what it says on the tin!”. I’ve read every recipe and watched countless YouTube videos and I’ve assimilated the general process - resistance is futile!

Kimchi recipes vary from region to region and even from family to family. Everyone has their own particular wrinkle or ‘secret’ ingredient. I found that the jar I bought was Mat Kimchi, or easy kimchi. The cabbage was ready chopped into bite sized chunks for easy making and eating. Poggi kimchi is the more traditional form which uses quartered cabbage formed into little parcels. This is the method I chose.

I trundled along to Korea Foods again on Tuesday to buy the ingredients:

• Napa Cabbage (a.k.a. Chinese leaf)
• Solar salt (a.k.a. coarse sea salt)
• more chilli powder than I’ve ever bought in one go
• green onions (a.k.a. scallions or spring onions)
• daikon radish - I was hoping for real Korean radish which is halfway between a daikon radish and a white turnip.

Once home and the booty disgorged I realised that I didn’t have receptacles large enough to deal with this quantity of stuff so I shoved the cabbages into the washing machine - there was nowhere else to put them - and postponed the project.

The next day I went to the place I felt sure would provide what I needed, big plastic mixing bowls and large glass jars. Destination Upper Tooting Road! There are so many diverse ethnic shops there, one of them must have what I was after. An Indian catering supplier had both.

The large plastic mixing bowls I’d seen people using on YouTube turned out to be dough bowls, and came with a bonus lid. They also had a goodly range of glass jars but what caught my eye was a large stainless steel milk churn, it was only two quid more than the largest glass jar and I couldn’t resist it.

I won’t bore you with the procedure (yet) as there’s so much on The WelkinReticulum. Here are a couple of the more interesting links I’ve come across:

• Interesting documentary on Korean national telly about the annual winter kimchi making - Gimjang - which was given UNESCO World cultural heritage status recently. This is a lovely insight into Korean culture, wonderful people and some stunning imagery. Watch out for the Buddhist monastery in the snow, and the pots, gorgeous pots! The Culinary Art of Kimchi
• This woman seems very popular on YouTube - 2 million viewers and counting - she made me smile. Traditional recipe

---

1. Korean pickled cabbage made using a lacto-fermentation process just like sauerkraut.  ↩
   
2. The Internet - literally SkyNet (“I’ll be back” - oh, looks like you are Arnie!) I reckon if I use this term often enough others might pick it up and use it too, not as catchy as The InnerChoobs (one of Awa Nick’s) but hey.  ↩
   

Korea Prospects

A Serendipitous Error

“Lucky’s already at Woodlands, we don’t need to pick her up”. Marie twigged that Mick was aiming for Fulham to collect the black labradog we look after while her owners are away. Mick took a different route to the A3 that takes us to The Woodlands Retreat Centre - via Mitcham Eastfields railway station, past the allotments and along Figges Marsh. As we skirted Mitcham town centre I chance to look left and noticed a large warehouse with a familiar blue sign. “Whoah! How long has that been there?” I yelled at Mick. “A couple of weeks? Dunno, not long”. It’s on my walking route to Colliers Wood but I haven’t been out that way this winter.

Korea Foods has a huge cash and carry in New Malden - which we passed half an hour later - a cornucopia of Asian food nestled between Halfords and The Big Yellow Storage place under the Shannons Corner flyover near the Northrop Grumman headquarters.

I learned about this place from Bea Young, who came to the Putney School of Art and Design Illustration class many moons ago. We used to talk food as it was a common interest. So, one day I rode the little 152 bus from Streatham all the way out to New Malden to scope this place out. I was in seventh heaven.

New Malden is “Little Korea”, it’s easy to get to from where I live but it’s a bit of a trek. Mitcham, however, is a 30 minute walk.

Today - a bright spring Sunday - we strolled out to Mitcham to investigate the new store. Wow! Asian food as far as the eye can see.

I stocked up on noodles (more than 57 varieties), seaweed, soy sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil, kimchi (the Korean version of sauerkraut - don’t get me started on sauerkraut!), Miso, tofu (if you buy fresh tofu in London it’s most likely made by Korea Foods), sauces and spices. That’s before we get on to the fresh vegetables.

That’s the menu sorted for the foreseeable future!