This is one of the water based kimchi which is so easy to make. You don’t need to brine vegetables too long as you are going to season as you add some water into it. One of typical ingredients for this recipe in Korea is a kind of herbal vegetable called ‘minari’. I’ve never seen it in a shop in England at all although I’ve seen something similar in a stream at the bottom of Devil’s dyke valley in Brighton. I did not want to try it out just in case… * When I look it up in Wikipedia, it shows some information about it. Have a look. Korean minari in English
Minari grows in water or near stream in Korea and is used in many dishes such as minari namul, garnish in fish stew, garnish in water based kimchi etc… Why am I now talking about minari which I can not even get in the UK? Because I have made this water based kimchi called ‘Nabak kimchi’ with watercress instead of minari. A few days ago, I went to one of my local organic&health food shops in Brighton and got two bunches of organic watercress. They are normally quite deer but they were reduced on the day. Well, watercress grows in water as you guess and I thought it might be similar to ‘minari’ which also grows in water. My experiment for this vegetable swap was quite right. These two different vegetables at least have one common factor, living in water, which shapes their stem hallow. Most plants lives in water have similar features, too. That makes these vegetables much more crunch texture and add various texture and flavour to ‘water based kimchi’. Even though watercress in my kimchi does not have lots of flavour like minari but it certainly adds interesting texture into kimchi. Satisfying!
TIME FOR KIMCHI 