This is something I've always been curious about. Frequently, when I go to Korean restaurants, when the banchan comes out, they serve a napa cabbage kimchi or radish (gakdugi) kimchi that seems to have a generous amount of kochujang in it. I am thinking it is some kind of mak kimchi or instant kimchi. It has always been my favorite. Whenever I would make kimchi at home following traditional recipes, they would never come out with the flavor or the color of the kimchi that I would eat at the restaurants. That is, until I starting adding a few tablespoons of kochujang to my kimchi paste before I added it to either the cabbage, radish or cucumber. When I did this, I achieved the flavor color and heat I was looking for. I guess I'm wondering, 'Is this kimchi sacrilege?'. I know every family in Korea has their own variation on kimchi and so does every region. Or is this just a concoction that the restaurants came up with recently to make kimchi more quickly? Just curious to see if anyone else does this or has heard of it. Not too many of the recipes that I find for kimchi online ever use kochujang, but now if I don't use it, it just doesn't taste right to me. Of course, I happen to prefer my kimchi on the fresher side, not too aged and sour or thin. Thoughts anyone?
ryan :)
