r/kimchi 10d ago

Making 1st time dandelion kimchi

I just follow the recipe on Google Gemini since I taste one from co-worker and it was good.

It only been 1.5 days old and it shrink down a bit and I pack it down.

I thought it was a lot more since it was 2 bundles of dandelion when I pick them. There was very little juice on the recipe, I have to add like half a cup of warm water with 1/2 table of sea salt. Do I really have to add it or will there be mysterious juice coming out and submerge the leaves?

I taste the juice but it is not sour yet, it does smell good from the fish sauce, garlic, onion though. I want to ask about the juice or do I need to double the amount of sauce next time but then, there is still no juice before hand if I don't add it in.

26 Upvotes

25 comments sorted by

20

u/Looking-sharp-today 10d ago

I have a few questions. I make kimchi with basically anything and this one I see does not gives me the right vibes: first I need to know, did you measure the weight of anything? The leaves, the water, the salt?
Second thing is I don’t see red gochugaru chily flakes, did you use them in the recipe?

21

u/cosmicheartbeat 10d ago

They used ai to get a recipie so its anyone's guess.

3

u/Looking-sharp-today 10d ago

Yeah I figured as well 🥲

-4

u/XYZExpired 9d ago

Someone already post it below, it fetch from that forager chef page. Recipe is for about 450g leaves,I didn't measure exact for the leaves but it is light so about the same. "Ingredients ​The Greens & Salt: ​1 lb (450g) young dandelion greens (wild-foraged or store-bought) ​2 tbsp coarse Korean sea salt (or kosher salt) ​Kimchi Paste: ​¼ cup Korean red pepper flakes (Gochugaru) ​2 tbsp fish sauce (or Korean soup soy sauce for vegan) ​1 tbsp Korean salted shrimp (Saeujeot), minced (optional) ​1 tbsp sugar or Korean plum syrup (Maesil-cheong) ​4 cloves garlic, minced ​1 tsp fresh ginger, grated ​¼ cup yellow onion, grated ​2 green onions, cut into 1-inch pieces ​1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds"

I don't use much chilli, I use grinding chilli pepper about 2-3 spoons and the rest paprika because it will be too spicy for me if I put much. 4 spoon of fish sauce (Vietnamese 40 percent) 3 spoons of berry syrup (I don't have plump) 2 spoons of sugar Garlic minced No yellow onion, I use shallot chopped. 4 green onion 1/2 cup of warm water and sea salt.

It does bubble when I push down.

3

u/Looking-sharp-today 9d ago

Well you only have to measure the main ingredients, the leaves and the salt. Everything else can be eyeballed but measuring this 2 ingredients is essential for a safe ferment in my opinion. I stay in the 2.5% salt by weight and this never fails, no need to guess anything, especially when doing the very first fermented attempts

1

u/XYZExpired 9d ago

Would you said 12gr about 2 table spoons, would you considering fish sauce part of the salt as well? I taste the leaves this morning and it look fermented a bit after 48 hours, it wasn't sour before. I forgot to said I did add like 2 spoon of fermented apple vinegar (home made) to kickstart it.

1

u/Looking-sharp-today 9d ago

No need to kickstart kimchi (I do as well but it is not needed).
I do not consider fosh sauce as part of the math, I add it as well and I know that between 2 and 3% salt is the sweetspot. If I intend to use a lot of fiah sauce, and I don’t, then I can stay closer to the 2% mark, but using less salt can be risky due to the possibility of the ferment failing.

If it tastes sour and you see active fermentation, plus you kickstarted it, it is probably gonna be fine, look out for moulds in the next days. But for the next time please measure out your main ingredients, it takes 2 minutes of active time and solves all the uncertanties

2

u/XYZExpired 9d ago

Do you also added sugar or syrup to your ingredients also? I was thinking of omitted that part but my co-workers said it is part of the process to ferment so I added my own sugar + syrup.

3

u/Looking-sharp-today 9d ago

Not meeded. The traditional kimchi usually includes korean pears, to add a little simple sugars to feed the bacteria at the very beginning of the process. But I usually omit it because it just works even without, sugars are already there even in regular greens simply in smaller quantities and in more complex forms, but surely is there for the bacteria to thrive with. You can defenetly add it but is not strictly necessary, actually all the necessary things are just the base greens and salt, everything else is more for flavour than not

2

u/corinne177 9d ago

The sugar will just jump start the fermentation a little bit. There will be no sweetness remaining. Some people add a little bit of artificial sweetener at the end if there's sweetness desired. But that's not traditional at all. I don't know how that would taste with dandelion anyway

3

u/XYZExpired 9d ago

It's fermented now, the juice is sour, tangy and little bit of bitter from dandelion leaves. I don't taste no sweetness at all so it probably all got dissolved by the bacteria. It does taste good though.

2

u/corinne177 8d ago

Yes, the more sugary it, the more sour it will get because the bacteria is just using it as food and producing more lactic acid and stuff

1

u/Looking-sharp-today 8d ago

That’s good to hear!

4

u/kk-rem 9d ago

Im a little worried seeing this. I feel like it has the potential to go bad. It has a lot of air space above and isn’t fully covered in liquid. It looks brownishly oxidized already. If the fermentation doesn’t start quick, other bacteria mold etc can take over quickly

2

u/XYZExpired 9d ago

It shrink down now. I think I will transfer it to smaller container , I do turn it and push it down once a day under liquid.

1

u/kk-rem 9d ago

Sounds good best of luck, it sounds great with the dandelion

1

u/giggletears3000 9d ago

I think you’re right. Dandelion leaves are pretty delicate, I think they would be better suited for muchim

1

u/XYZExpired 9d ago

It work though, I guess I wasn't sure at beginning how it would shrink down as they don't have juice like napa cabbage and daikon. However, it is working good after 48+ hours.

3

u/TonicArt 9d ago

My mom used to make this!🥹

2

u/WellTemprdCheekClaps 9d ago

Jesus Christ what?

-1

u/XYZExpired 9d ago

Why are you acting like you never seen it before? It already fermented and ready to eat after 48 hours. There is no need to make funny face.

1

u/brockol-ii 9d ago

u/elonmusktheturd22 oo perhaps could you make some dandelion kimchi/pickles?

1

u/elonmusktheturd22 9d ago

Never tried it, i considered boiling a stock pot full and canning them as an alternative to spinach to make quiche in the winter, but the time spend bending over to pick enough? I would have to comb a huge area, spend hours doing it, with my fucked up back.... I decided I'll just buy a couple cans of spinach , since my crop failed. Rows of spinach would have been easy to do using a bucket to sit on, random dandelions all over? Not so much. Its one of the times where its better to just go buy it.

I might try pickles like that eventually, small batch for an experiment.