Got a lot of time on your hands this summer? Like spicy smelly food that’s been fermenting for a while but tastes great? Make kimchi!

Kimchi is a dish that is to Korea as french fries are to the United States. (Editor’s Note: Great when you’re drunk/depressed?) In other words, it is much craved and eaten with everything.

So what is it? Well, generally speaking, it’s spiced up, fermented cabbage. Like super fermented. Like days - and sometimes years-long - fermented.

No, but seriously, it is. But, I mean, it’s delicious. A bajillion Koreans (and Americans and Europeans and all the other world-wide kimchi converts) can’t be wrong.

So satisfy your ferment tooth (mmm…fermented…) with this tasty recipe and broaden those horizons.

Kimchi!

1 roughtly 1-pound-2-ounces napa cabbage (also sometimes called Chinese cabbage)
5 cups of water
1 1/2 cups of chili powder
5 scallions (cut ‘em into 1 1/2 inch strips)
2 teaspoons of garlic (chopped really small)
1 small leek (just the white part, cut into 1 1/2 inch strips)
1 teaspoon of sugar
1 cup coarse salt
1 5-oz radish (cut into 1 1/2 inch strips)
1 teaspoon of ginger (chopped really small)

Chop off the root end of the cabbage. In a big bowl, mix the salt with 4 cups of water until it dissolves.
Soak the cabbage in the bowl and add water until it’s completely submerged. Put something large and heavy (and non-toxic) on top of the cabbage to weigh it down and then let it sit for 10 hours.
When said hours have passed, drain and rinse the sucker and then squeeze it dry.

In the meantime, mix all the other ingredients together in a different bowl. Separate each cabbage leave and shove it full of everything else.
Then shovel it all into a glass jar and cover the jar tightly (you don’t want any extra air sneaking in).
Let this freaking jar sit in a room with no light and regular kind of temperature for 3 days.
After three days, put that sucker in the refrigerator. Don’t remove it from the jar!
Eat it!! It’ll be good for months.

Hey! This is really vital! NEVER ever use reactive metal when storing kimchi. Plastic is bad too. You should ONLY use stainless steel or porcelain. This is VITAL for your health.

[Image courtesy of www.kokuryo.com]