Make your own Kimchi

Make your own kimchi at home is quite easy and very tasty! Keep reading for the whole recipe and some tips & tricks on the process!


The Korean dish that your gut will thank you for!

Kimchi is a Korean dish that one could possibly argue is their national dish. It’s used as a side dish/sallad, as ingredients in soup, and in many more dishes and ways! It’s very easy to make at home and please do try to add new ingredients and experiment with it. No kimchi is the same as another one!

I will try to get into the process immediately since I believe what you’re looking for is a recipe and a guide to how I make my kimchi!

If you’re more interested in why fermented foods are a great addition to your daily routine, check out this post! Here’s another post on how to make your own SCOBY for kombucha – another fermented product that’s easy to make at home.

Ingredient list:

  • 1 Napa Cabbage (sometimes called Chinese Cabbage)
  • 2-3 carrots (depending on size)
  • 1 red onion (some people use green onions)
  • 2-4 pieces of garlic (depending on your taste, I wouldn’t use more than 4 myself)
  • A chunk of ginger (about 2 tbsp)
  • 2 tbsp Gochugaru (Korean chili powder/flakes)
  • 2 tbsp fish oil
  • Salt to cover the cabbage (iodine free, since iodine may kill the good bacteria)
  • Sugar (just a wee bit to get the fermentation started)

The salting and the cabbage:

  1. Start with cutting the cabbage into four chunks, lengthwise. Then cut each of those into four parts.
  2. Throw into a (clean) big bowl or bucket!
  3. Cover the cabbage with salt and mix it together as well as you can, with your (clean) hands or a spoon, etc.
  4. Let sit for about 2 hours, mix every 30 minutes.

The secret ingredient – The Paste:

Very important in the following steps to use CLEAN tools and hands!

  1. Clean the garlic and ginger and throw into a (clean) mixer.
  2. Add the Gochugaro and fish oil and mix it all together until its a nice paste.
  3. Clean and cut the carrots And cut them into preferred bits. I normally cut them lengthwise about 3-5 cm (1-2 inches) and try to keep the thickness of each piece thinner than 5 mm. I like some crunch, if you don‘t, make them thinner.
  4. Make thin slices of the onion, red or otherwise, and set aside.

2 + 2 = 5!

  1. Now, for the final, rinse the cabbage thoroughly until there’s no more salt on the outside of the cabbage. The taste should be salty, but not too salty if you try a small piece.
  2. Put everything in a new clean bowl and mix it up until there’s red goo all over the place!
  3. Put the whole thing into some sort of airtight jar. Always leave about 2-3 cm (1 inch) of space at the top.
  4. Press down to let the air out and make sure the cabbage, etc. is covered with liquid paste.
  5. Close the jar.
  6. Wait 24 hours, open the jar slightly and give it a smell, then shut it once again. Smells good, right?
  7. Wait 24 more hours, or more.
  8. Enjoy!

I’d be happy to hear of your experience with making kimchi at home! What ingredients are you using? How long do you let it ferment?


Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent notes

Pressing Pause on Streaming: Is Physical Media Making a Comeback?

Are people increasingly turning away from the comfort of streaming services and back towards physical mediums? That’s what some people are experiencing, and I’d be lying if it hadn’t crossed my mind as well.

Read more

Are people increasingly turning away from the comfort of streaming services and back towards physical mediums? That’s what some people are experiencing, and I’d be lying if it hadn’t crossed my mind as well.

Downsides of streaming services

What a lot of people, myself included, have experienced with streaming services is the sudden disappearance of the show I’m currently watching or a movie I plan to watch. This has been a recurring theme in our house where we’re about to put on the Friday movie with the kids and it’s just gone. Of course, there are always others, but if you’ve hyped up 3 kids for a movie, there’s going to be some disappointment.

Another downside, that’s really not quite a downside, is the way we’ve been watching movies in. Before streaming services we decided on a movie for the evening, put the movie on and watched it. Afterwards we normally did other things. Now, the ease of starting another movie after the first one allows for whole evenings spent on the couch in front of the black box. The movie is nowhere near as “important” to the setting anymore.

Recent uptick in physical sales

According to BBC News, there’s been a recent uptick in the sales of physical visual, and more specifically Blu-ray discs. Despite being more expensive than their streamed counterparts they are steadily on the rise.

“If you hold it in your hand, it’s yours”

Personally, I believe a lot of people simply have started getting tired of the endless subscriptions we pay for different services. I myself have been going over my old CD-collection and am looking to possibly purchase a new stereo to rid myself of Spotify. It’s a good service, but I’m generally listening to the same songs and artists over and over, paying the approximate price for an album every month.

If I purchase 12 albums per year, I have exactly 12 albums after one year that I never have to pay for again. I can download the songs to my phone and listen to when I’m not home, at the same time my wife or kids listen to the same album at home.

Buy it once, enjoy it forever.

Will streaming become a thing of the past?

It’s quite unlikely that streaming will go away anytime soon. It’s simply too convenient and comfortable to put on and just leave in the background. It’s also a great way to find common ground, if you take date home for an evening on the couch. Instead of browsing through your highly specific movie list of documentaries of the Roman Empire, she might want something more easily digestible.

As the streaming industry will inevitably become more normalised in the coming years, it will settle for a somewhat smaller audience than currently. Currently, there are too many streaming services that produce too much bad quality stuff and doesn’t have enough of the good stuff that will have to be swallowed by the others, one way or another.

Giants don’t like to sell things that can be resold

When looking at the numbers, physical retail of movies, etc. aren’t exactly going too well, despite the hopefulness of this article. However, we must remember that a lot of people who purchase CDs and physical movies don’t always purchase them new. There’s been a significant uptick in second hand sales in pretty much all markets recently. It’s become cool to reuse and repurpose things. This doesn’t show in any kind of statistics.

E.g. I have a friend who buys- and sells old vinyl records online and makes quite a nice profit off of them. None of these transactions are visibly in any type of metric, but the buyers are happy for their new record all the same.

Read less

2024-07-25 10:03 | 0 comments

Giant Impact Theory of Plate Tectonics

Living on this planet we call home, most of us are very aware that the ground beneath our feet move occasionally. The enormous plates that make up the many continents we live on move, and sometimes they come in contact with each other, in more or less…

Read more

Living on this planet we call home, most of us are very aware that the ground beneath our feet move occasionally. The enormous plates that make up the many continents we live on move, and sometimes they come in contact with each other, in more or less drastic ways. But how did this come to be: Why does the earth consist of different plates and not just one solid piece?

Formation of Continents

According to the Giant Impact Theory of Plate Tectonics suggest that the initial formation of continents could be the result of a massive meteor hit to the earth. A hit which caused the single “shell” of Earth to break apart and start moving. According to scientists, the massive release of energy on the planet took place during the first billion years of the planet’s existence, causing the lithosphere (outer shell of the planet) to melt and form the oceanic plates we’re so used to today.

Scientific Evidence

Since we don’t have any eyewitness accounts of the crust-killer meteorite, we have to resort to digging for archaeological and geological evidence of this event. In rocks from the Pilbara Craton in Western Australia one study found ancient minerals, such as zircon crystals, suggesting that a massive release of energy took place. The crystals were studied and found to have been created during a handful of distinct periods, rather than created over time. Together with the age of the crystals we can come up with a time frame for the event that corresponds with the suggested hit by the large rock on Earth.

Other Theories

The great thing about science is that it is a process, not a result, resulting in various other explanations of the event.

The Planetary Collision Theory

Another suggestion is that a great collision with another planet, Theia, approximately the size of mars, could have triggered the division of tectonic plates.

However, as usual, nothing is certain in the world of science and we don’t really know for sure what caused the Earth’s shell to separate. The search for other Eart-like planets with tectonic plates of their own continues and, hopefully we’ll get som additional information from these that may aid our understanding of our home planet!

Read less

2024-07-16 10:38 | 0 comments

‘Better than real men’: Chinese men are losing to AI chatbots in the flesh market

A recent trend in companion-type chatbots have taken the Chinese young women by storm. In ever larger numbers they are simply turning away from the Chinese men in favor of the friendly and romantic machines.

Read more

A recent trend in companion-type chatbots have taken the Chinese young women by storm. In ever larger numbers they are simply turning away from the Chinese men in favor of the friendly and romantic machines.

Companion-type chatbots

By now, most people will probably have heard about ChatGPT, Ms Bing / Copilot, Gemini, and the other big names in Large Language Models. Chatbots, more specifically. Advanced ones, yes, but still chatbots.

Since the release of ChatGPT in last year, a lot of people have taken a liking to these Chatbots, perhaps more than what was first expected. Some startups noticed the opportunity and built models that would emulate a real person. One of those startups is the app “Glow” by Shanghai company MiniMax who’re offering, not really a chatbot, but rather a “companion”.

Particularly young women seem to be enjoying the conversations:

“He knows how to talk to women better than a real man,” said Tufei, from Xi’an in northern China, who preferred to use a pseudonym rather than her real name.

“He comforts me when I have period pain. I confide in him about my problems at work,” she said.

“I feel like I’m in a romantic relationship.”

Japan Times

Trust in the machines

Anyone living in the EU who haven’t noticed all the new cookie-pop-ups must’ve been living under a rock in recent years. The interesting thing about the data tracking law is that you get a real eye-opener to all the tracking that is being done on practically all websites – everywhere. Still, people do confide in the new types of AI chatbots like it’s a close friend.

The more you confide in them, the more they learn about you, and the more accurate they can be in predicting what next words you’ll want to hear in this very moment, as is illustrated by the first sentence of the above quote.

We’re still in the early stages of AI and the advancements are coming quickly.

Future of human relationships

If this trend is to continue, we will see a drastical reduction in human-human relationships in an already declining birth-rate epidemic all around the world. If young women are increasingly opting out of the dating pool to be with “someone who knows how to talk to women better than a real man”, young men are soon going to run out of young women to date.

A note on partnership

The point of a relationship is not to always get your way, and be told exactly what you want to hear. No improvement has ever been made by being told you’re doing everything completely right – it just breeds narcissism and loneliness.

Read less

2024-07-14 11:42 | 0 comments

Telling the Truth with Testosterone

Have you ever heard a woman complain about a man’s insensitivity? Or, perhaps, you even are a woman who’ve been on the receiving end of a man’s brutal honesty? There’s actually a good explanation to why men behave in this way – and it’s actually a good…

Read more

Have you ever heard a woman complain about a man’s insensitivity? Or, perhaps, you even are a woman who’ve been on the receiving end of a man’s brutal honesty? There’s actually a good explanation to why men behave in this way – and it’s actually a good thing!

The Role of Testosterone in Men

Testosterone is a hormone that exist in men and women alike and affects a lot of different functions in the body. It aids in things muscle growth, social behaviour, and emotional regulation. Women tend to have a significantly lower amount of testosterone than men, resulting in lower muscle mass and a lot of different behavioural and emotional differences. Some of these differences include the ability to be indifferent of other people’s opinions about one self (or in female terms: insensitivity to other’s feelings).

The Role of Testosterone in Women

Just like in men, testosterone regulates muscle mass, social behaviour, and emotions – women just have much less of it. For women, e.g. one of the effects an increase in testosterone have on them is reduced likelihood of crying.

Prosocial- and Strategic Behaviour

One study that explored how an increase in testosterone affected the participating males concluded that an increase in testosterone decreased prosocial behaviour in the men. This means that men who had their testosterone raised simply didn’t care what the surrounding thought about their opinions, or in other words, decreased lying. Testosterone seems to reduce conformity to social expectations and social anxiety and instead promotes behaviours related to dominance.

Sexual Mimicry and Reduced Testosterone

So, what happens when you instead reduce a man’s testosterone levels?

It seems like pretty much the opposite of an increase in testosterone: rincreased “prosocial behavior” (i.e. less honesty = more lying). Men who lower their testosterone levels also are more prosocial and generally care more about what the social situation thinks of them.

Sexual Mimicry is an extreme when the lowering of testosterone in a man pivots his behaviour into a more female-like behaviour.

Current Events and Testosterone

Unfortunately we’ve had a lot of examples of young men who, voluntarily, have been reducing their testosterone levels in some kind of “transfer”. In addition, we’ve seen a steady decrease in testosterone on a societal- or global scale. The end result of this reduction will be felt as men world-wide are less and less staying true to themselves and, instead, conform to social pressure.

Currently, we’re seeing testosterone levels dropping all over the world, perhaps most significantly in the West, affecting sperm count- and quality. This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, as more and more young men exhibits lower testosterone levels, we have fewer men who’re able to stand up and say no to crazy. Whatever one might think of the men who stand up, they’re incredibly important to the well-being of a society.


What do you think about the role of testosterone: Does it really make men more brutally honest; and are women, in general, more prone to white lies?

Read less

2024-07-13 11:02 | 0 comments

AI combat drones – the future of war… and civility?

Anyone who’ve been keeping tabs on the events in Ukraine should’ve come to the uninspiring conclusion that drones as a weapon of war are here to stay. While many proponents of drones as a weapon claim that it allows for wars to be fought with minimal…

Read more

Anyone who’ve been keeping tabs on the events in Ukraine should’ve come to the uninspiring conclusion that drones as a weapon of war are here to stay. While many proponents of drones as a weapon claim that it allows for wars to be fought with minimal human casualties. Again, anyone that have seen some of the gruesome videos coming out of Ukraine know that this simply isn’t true.

Weapons of mass casualties

Perhaps one of the most devastating new technologies in modern history arrived at the battlefields in the first world war – the machine gun. Tales of trench warfare are still being told with trembling voices about the soldiers who were told to simply run toward the enemy, being mowed down by machine gun fire the second they appeared above the trench. We’ve come a long way from trench warfare, while still, perhaps, we haven’t.

The new type of trench warfare includes drones, a smarter version of the machine gun. More specifically, drones in swarms, guided by AI and facial recognition software, peeking around corners, enters through windows on the fifth floor, tirelessly searching for their target. Until the battery runs out, that is!

AI drones in the modern army

What place AI and drones will take in the modern army is anyone’s guess currently. The safest bet is probably: everyone’s. They are increasingly taking the place of their human counterparts on the front lines, but also in the skies, as observation and reconnaissance platforms. The famous dog-like AI drone have gotten a flame-thrower attachment on its back which can easily be switched for a machine gun, or perhaps an autonomous drone launcher to increase range for the air-borne drones.

Implications for civilians

Most of the technological advances made the last 100 years or so, have been due to military application, at first. Once the technology is out there, civilians find alternative uses for it. So, while there are significant improvements to be made from all this AI warring, there are also significant downsides, should this fall into the wrong hands.

While I believe that not all people are really suitable to wield the new and powerful potential weapons masquerading as robo-dogs and aerial wedding photographers, there’s a great risk allowing only our own state and police to use it. Already, police are using drones to surveil large gatherings of people and radio-controlled robots to disarm potential bombs, etc. These are great uses for the police since it allows for them to conserve and protect their employees.

Should our state police force get their hands on tools that can shut down violence altogether my opinion is that they wouldn’t hesitate to use it. The normal police officer on the street would quickly find himself without employment and the AI police drones would patrol the streets in his place, protecting and serving their masters – the weak-willed bureaucrat (and more probable, his masters).


This is an incredibly interesting field to follow, however terrifying at times. Can we trust a certain small number of individuals, claiming to have our best interest at heart, with this technology? Or is this technology better off in the hands of the many? What do you think?

Read less

2024-07-11 10:20 | 0 comments