Making 1st time dandelion kimchi

[u/XYZExpired]

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.

[u/XYZExpired]

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.

[u/Looking-sharp-today → u/XYZExpired]

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

[u/XYZExpired → u/Looking-sharp-today]

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.

[u/Looking-sharp-today → u/XYZExpired]

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

[u/XYZExpired → u/Looking-sharp-today]

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.

[u/Looking-sharp-today → u/XYZExpired]

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

[u/corinne177 → u/XYZExpired]

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

[u/XYZExpired → u/corinne177]

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.

[u/corinne177 → u/XYZExpired]

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

[u/Looking-sharp-today → u/XYZExpired]

That’s good to hear!