Its actually Bibim bap , with bap meaning rice. I'm not sure there is an actual recipe for it other than a bunch of side dishes and kochijang (a red spicy fermented sauce available from Yumihana).
Kimchi is easy to make at home, all the ingredients you can find in Migros or Coop, with the exception of the red chili flakes (it has to be a specific type) which you can buy at Yumi Hana in Zurich near the main station. One bag will last more than a year.
Just Youtube "kimchi recipe".
For hardcore kimchi lovers, the magic ingredient is slices of pear or apple, and minced up anchovies or raw oysters.
I have an outdoor fridge where I keep jars of it.
Hi, Phos:
Thanks a lot for the Korean lesson.. I will defeintely try to make it by myself one day..
Cheers
Errrr..... if you live in an apartment, please don't try to make kimchi at home.
If you live near neighbors, please don't try to make kimchi at home.
If you like your refrigerator, and would like to keep it smelling fresh, don't kimchi at home.
Just buy it from Yumihana, or in cans.
You've been warned
It can't be worse than Surstroemming, can it?
Tom
Its pretty bad man. One can walk into the front door of a large apartment complex and tell if someone has been making kimchee. They traditionally bury it deep underground in winter to ferment, but you can still smell it.
It's an acquired taste, and there are few tastes like it. It's quite good for you, with antibiotic properties. Scientists are not even able to catalog and identify all the enzymes in it.
I like the canned stuff I've bought, and am thinking about making it.
I've opened surstroemming at work (a treat for some visiting Swedes), but never at home.
May give making kimchi a try, anyway.
At least we are on the top floor.
Tom
I've never opened a can of surstroemming.
The thing about kimchee is the lingering smell it leaves in refrigerators, long after you stop making it. I don't know how it does that, but I suspect it reaches deep into the insulation of the fridge.
If you have a place to bury it underground, it is the traditional method.
Have fun, good luck and enjoy!
I think the smell of kimchi is no worse than that of Sauerkraut but it tastes so much better. My other half thinks otherwise though.
Making it was very easy and rewarding (especially the tasting part every couple of days) and my other half ate it when I used it in frying rice, but he pleaded with me never to make it again. He almost fainted every time he opened the fridge.
Mind you, there are all kinds of variations to kimchee. Some have fish, shrimp, oysters, etc. So the range of possible odors is probably more than a simple cabbage kimchee.
Mine was the usual 'vegetarian' kind. Apart from the fish sauce, that is.
Back in the day, my friend and roomie's mother came to visit us, and made some home-made kimchee for us. All was good (and I don't mind the smell usually) until she somehow spilled fish sauce on our carpet.
I LOVE fish sauce!
We use it quite often, even in a couple sauces I make for fondue chinoise/bourguignonne (we usually do both).
Tom
By the way, all the Korean restaurants I've been to in the area have taken their food down a notch in authenticity. I've only been to 2 in Zuerich, and 2 near Basel. I know that wonderful family at Yumihana, and they also admit to doing so at times, because the locals don't fully get it yet. If you know real Korean food, do you know where is the most authentic Korean restaurant in the area? I like it hardcore Korean. My craving for Korean food here is like a itch I can't scratch.
So I made up a batch today over the lunch break, now it has to ferment.
Tom
Hey Korean food lovers, some of my friends recently attended a Korean cooking class in Zurich where they learned how to make Kimchi and Korean BBQ - and now they don't buy Kimchi anymore but they cook all the Korean food themselves at home!
www.sherlyskitchen.com
Honestly, I've learned to cook Korean from watching the videos on
www.maangchi.com (she's a truly gifted cooking teacher, in that she really explains the signals the food is giving you), and the dishes always come out as good as in the excellent Korean restaurants I had near me in USA.