Like wading through treacle

  Part of the final stages of building the website involve making sure all sorts of little details are taken care of. As this is my first one I can see if I'd been a bit more methodical earlier on there would be less T crossing and I dotting, but such is life. As a result, I've spent most of today making loads of little adjustments that any self respecting pedant would consider totally necessary. It's not completely finished but it's looking a lot better so go check it out. www.RevoltingFood.com

  One of the subjects I nearly subjected you to yesterday was the kimchi I made. Probably because I haven't been cooking much in the last few days, I thought I'd have a chopping fest and do most of the cutting by hand. In fact, only the mooli got sliced with a mandolin, everything else got hacked up the old fashioned way.

  Here are most of the ingredients ready to get shredded. The brown pot on the left is the fermenting crock where everything will end up.

  For some reason I'd ended up with pretty much everything in one bowl and the two Chinese cabbage in the other. It made the process of scrunching a lot easier as I don't have any bigger bowls. One thing I love is that unlike other types of fermentation, which need certain moulds or bacteria to get a specific result, kimchi and sauerkraut quite happily use whatever is found in the air or on my skin to get going.

  With everything chopped and scrunched I managed to get it all crammed into the crock with the help of the whatever the thing is called that helps me stuff it all in below the surface of the fluid that has started to ooze out. Anything above the liquid level can get mouldy, which we don't want. It's now sitting on the side of my kitchen just doing its thing. In about a week bubbles will start to escape telling me it's fermenting but I want this one to be quite strong so I'll probably let it go for two weeks before I decant it. It goes without saying that I'll keep you posted.

​​​​​​​Tomorrow, Italian. Almost.

Kirk out

RevoltingFood.com