Chapter 1426 - 557: Pickled Spicy Kimchi, Roasted Pumpkin Chips, a Hundred Delicious Flavors—Yet Braised Goose Is Still the Best! [Bonus - 2]

Chapter 1426: Chapter 557: Pickled Spicy Kimchi, Roasted Pumpkin Chips, a Hundred Delicious Flavors—Yet Braised Goose Is Still the Best! [Bonus Chapter 2]

"Since you want to eat it, let’s make kimchi."

Kimchi is a traditional delicacy of the Northeastern Korean community, typically found in Northeast restaurants and Korean-style restaurants. Its color is vibrant, and the taste is fresh, spicy, and appetizing, making it a great accompaniment to rice.

After Lin Xu said this, he began the preparation.

While the cabbage hasn’t started to rot, let’s pickle it quickly; otherwise, it’s just going to go bad and have to be thrown away.

Like dried radish, kimchi also requires using salt to draw out the moisture first, then applying a specially made chili paste to pickle it, allowing the spicy flavor to penetrate the cabbage leaves.

After fermentation by lactic acid bacteria, these cabbage leaves will become the irresistible kimchi for many.

Lin Xu is familiar with this dish. In the past, when eating Korean-style grilled meat, the waiter would promptly serve a plate of it.

Honestly, the crunchy, spicy, and sour cabbage leaves are very refreshing, especially after eating the browned roasted pork belly, a bite of kimchi is truly satisfying!

Besides pairing with grilled meat, kimchi can also be seen in the Korean cold noodles eaten in summer.

During school, in the summer, the Northeast window of the school had cold noodles available. On top of the icy cold noodles was a bunch of kimchi which tasted spicy and sour, delightful. Having a bowl in the summer was incredibly soothing.

Additionally, some Northeast restaurants offer dishes such as kimchi-stewed meat, kimchi stir-fried meat, and kimchi with fatty intestines, elevating this delicacy to the extreme.

Lin Xu removed the outer leaves of the cabbage, keeping only the good ones inside.

Then he cut off the cabbage root, and the cabbages, which had previously wilted, became white and clean. These winter storage vegetables are very hardy; sometimes the outer leaves have already wrinkled or turned black and dry.

But once you peel them off, the inner leaves and stems are still fresh.

After thoroughly cleaning the cabbages, Lin Xu used a knife to cut the cabbage in half.

Then he grabbed salt and rubbed it on the cut surfaces, using the dehydrating property of the salt to draw out the moisture from the cabbage.

Cuisine emphasizes "add flavor to release it, no flavor to absorb it," and when applied to pickling, it’s "with water to release it, without water to absorb it."

First, use salt or sugar to extract the moisture from the ingredients, then proceed with pickling, allowing the flavors to penetrate.

Whether it’s pickled cucumbers, sour radishes, or kimchi, they all generally follow this principle.

Now with kimchi, it’s the same process.

First, draw out the moisture from the cabbage, allowing it to dehydrate, then apply the special chili paste to infuse the spicy flavor into the cabbage.

While the flavor is penetrating, lactic acid bacteria will also ferment quickly.

Once the spicy flavor permeates and the naturally fermented sour taste forms, this creates the source of the spicy-sour flavor of kimchi, without adding a drop of vinegar during pickling, yet giving the cabbage the most attractive sour aroma.

This is the charm of pickling.

Lin Xu placed the cabbages rubbed with salt in a basin with the cut side facing up, allowing the brine to seep into the layers of the cabbage.

For drawing out moisture, the more thorough, the better.

"How long does it take, Xu Bao?"

Shen Jiayue sat with her cheeks cupped, quietly watching, wanting to help, but Lin Xu was concerned that the salt would hurt her hands, so he refused.

Not only did he refuse this time, but he would also refuse the step of applying chili after draining the water from the cabbage.

You can learn to cook along, but safety comes first—no injuries allowed.

Lin Xu took a large pot lid to cover the basin and said to Shen Jiayue:

"About two hours or more. These cabbages have lost quite a bit of moisture during storage, so the time for drawing out moisture doesn’t need to be too long."

Shi Wenming looked at the remaining sweet potatoes and pumpkins and asked:

"What about these, Xiao Xu? What are you planning to do with them?"

The pumpkins were grown in the scenic area, large and sweet. When winter came, Chen Meijuan specifically selected over a hundred pounds to place in the storage room for winter storage, so Lin Xu could eat them when he came home.

But she stored too many, so although some were eaten in the past few days, it’s still far behind the stored amount.

These old pumpkins are all exceedingly sweet and tender, their texture and flavor are exceptional.

So Shi Wenming was eager to know how Lin Xu would handle them.

The same goes for the hundred-plus pounds of sweet potatoes waiting to be handled. If it were winter, these sweet potatoes would be consumed by several families.

But now, as the weather gradually warms, moisture has started seeping out from the sweet potatoes’ surface. At this rate, it won’t be long before the sweet potatoes begin to rot.

Lin Xu said:

"Throwing away the pumpkins and sweet potatoes would be a waste. Later, I’ll first make some pumpkin jerky and sweet potato jerky; the rest will be boiled into pumpkin candy and sweet potato candy respectively."

Shi Wenming’s eyes lit up, thinking this was a great idea.

Pumpkin jerky was a major snack during childhood. Every autumn, each family would choose a sunny day to go to the pumpkin field, pluck some old pumpkins, peel them, and cut them into rings to dry in the sun.

Sun-dry them for several days until the pumpkins significantly shrink, soften and dry, then steam them soft in a pot, and dry them again.

This way, a delicious pumpkin jerky with a chewy texture, aromatic and sweet flavor is complete.

It is said that the best-tasting pumpkin jerky requires three rounds of steaming and drying, thoroughly stimulating the sweetness of the pumpkin and improving the texture, making it so luscious that it practically has a silky texture.

But Shi Wenming has never tasted it, as the elders were never so idle during his childhood.

Every day they went to the fields early and returned late to manage the crops, just to fill their stomachs.

Pumpkin jerky was merely something to give the kids a snack, but they couldn’t let it delay the field work.

Shen Jiayue said, giggling: