Wild Garlic Kimchi

We draw close to the end of the wild garlic season, and it has been a joy to see so many take advantage of such a delicious plant. The seasonality of foraging is second only the food that can be created in the sheer joy it brings me, yet it inherently brings a tinge of sadness with it. I am now going to have to wait a full year until I can enjoy fresh wild garlic again. Well, I felt a little stubborn and decided to twist the ever popular fermented cabbage recipe, kimchi, so I can get my wild garlic hits for at least a month after we have to say goodbye to it in our local woodlands. Thanks to the already strong flavours of the gochugaru, you can’t really go overboard with the how much wild garlic you put in this. I’m not going to tell you how to serve or enjoy your kimchi, its such an incredibly versatile food, but one way I’ve been enjoying it recently is in a cheese toastie - sourdough or top quality white bread, nice, strong mature cheddar and a couple of tablespoons of kimchi, all grilled together. It’s a thing of true beauty!

1 large savoy cabbage, roughly 1.2kg

Sea salt

45g rice flour

50g sugar

1 carrot

1/2 daikon radish

8 spring onions

2 inch piece of ginger

1 onion

Large handful of wild garlic

150g gochugaru powder

10ml vegetarian fish sauce

2 large, sterilised jars

1. Rinse the cabbage, cut into quarters and cut out the thick central core. Depending on how chunky you want the kimchi to be, chop up the cabbage to a suitable degree. I personally go for 1cm wide strips, just take into account shrinkage due to water loss.

2. Place the cabbage in a large bowl, and add three or four large pinches of salt. Now start massaging and scrunching up the cabbage, and don’t worry if not much seems to happen for a little while. You’ll get to a point and suddenly water will just start appearing. Massage the cabbage until it is very soft, and the water has submerged most of it.

3. In a large pan, add 750ml of water. the rice flour and the sugar and bring to the boil. Continue stirring while reducing the heat to a low simmer, then remove from the heat entirely. Leave to cool to room temperature.

4. Grate the carrot, daikon, onion and ginger, and mix with the drained cabbage. Finely slice your wild garlic and add to the vegetables, alongside the gochugaru and cooled flour liquid. Mix well, ensuring the gochugaru coats everything and the wild garlic is uniformly dispersed throughout.

5. Fill up your jars with kimchi, and leave at room temperature for five days with the lids ajar. The kimchi will produce more liquid during these days, so make sure to put the jars on a plate or board, and once a day press the kimchi down to remove air pockets.

6. After five days, or once very little water is produced, it is ready to consume! This will keep up for a month or so, just don’t eat it if it smells off or looks discoloured.