Are you a fan of kimchi?

We are. My daughters became kimchi afficionados long before I learned to appreciate it. In fact, it was through them that I learned to acquire a taste for kimchi. So, whenever I come across a way of serving kimchi in a non-traditional way, I know it will be a kimchi kind of day.

Kimchi is a banchan (a small dish served with meals in Korean cuisine) and probably the most well known banchan outside Korea. Kimchi made with napa cabbage is popular and that was the first kind of kimchi that anyone attempted to make here at home.

My younger daughter, Alex, made it during the early months of COVID lockdown. We had problems sourcing cooking ingredients but there was a Korean mini-mart that stayed open and took orders online. Looking back, I think that was really the point when I started to appreciate Korean food. When all you’ve got are ingredients for Korean dishes, you learn how to make the most of what you have.

Alex carefully followed the instructions in Maangchi’s blog but she felt some trepidation about the fermentation. It’s much hotter, and more humid, in the Philippines and leaving the cured cabbage on the kitchen counter for a few days worried her. She didn’t want the cabbage to spoil and make everyone in the family sick, she said, so as soon as the first signs of fermentation set in, the kimchi was transferred to the fridge.

A few days later, we were having homemade kimchi with our meals, and I genuinely started to like it. Then, we learned to use kimchi in different ways. It wasn’t just banchan, it was a cooking ingredient too.

Just to show you how much my daughters love Korean food, a few months after lockdown was imposed, Sam, my older daughter, had her birthday and when asked what she wanted to eat on her special day, she chose a very traditional Korean restaurant to order food from. Fortunately, it was open, we could order online but someone needed to pick up the food. Her father did.

Sam chose three different kinds of kimchi one of which was green onion kimchi (pa-kimchi). I was smitten. It’s been my favorite kimchi since. And Alex has learned to make it and make it well.

See how we enjoy kimchi at home.