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Hey folks, this week we're making kimchi,
which begins with Napa cabbage.
A Napa cabbage that we're going to cut into quarters
lengthwise and soak in lightly salted water for one hour
before beginning the process of transforming it into kimchi.
A process which honestly terrifies me
so I've recruited the help of a very special guest.
Okay ladies and gentlemen, we're back for another segment
of basics with Babish.
And today my guest is a lot of different things.
He's singularly responsible for the so-called food
truck revolution.
He is a renowned chef and cookbook author restaurant tour,
and the themed food consultant behind the famed
foodie film 'Chef'.
Joining me today is Roy Choy.
Roy how you doing man?
[Roy]- Hey, what's up man?
Just getting a suntan over here.
[Andrew]- I don't even know why you need that background.
You're out in LA, right?
Like that's bad. That's outside.
[Roy]- That's right.
[Andrew]- How's your life, man.
For those who don't follow you on Instagram,
you're doing a lot of great stuff.
That's the food truck and everything
tell us a little bit about what's going on
in your world nowadays.
[Roy]- I run a truck called Kogi, we were sitting
like on the third day or so of the pandemic.
I was seeing a lot of my colleagues and the restaurants
pretty much fall to the ground.
And I was sitting in my car in the middle of skid row.
We were feeding a clinic there.
I said like in what if we, for this moment,
our truck can be a vehicle for anyone who wanted
to help anyone to funnel their money through Kogi
we will take that money and you could see literally
the dollar that you gave would go to buy
a taco to feed someone.
And so for the three months, the last three months,
really we've operating in that type of model.
Whether you've lost a job,
whether you on the streets homeless,
frontline workers in hospitals and clinics.
And you know, that's what I do.
This entertainment stuff man
this is just my side job.
(laughs)
[Andrew]- I'll be your side piece anytime man.
Well, thank you so much for what you're doing out there.
Maybe from, you know, from many tragedies
some really interesting and exciting things can come of it.
Speaking of COVID and quarantine
and everything, everybody seems to be making
sourdough nowadays.
I guess it's one of those things that you always want to do,
but you never have the time.
Then everybody suddenly had the time and instead of
sourdough, I think people should be making kimchi.
Would you agree?
[Roy]- I mean there's nothing wrong with sourdough,
but kimchi...
Sourdough is kind of like a PG movie.
Kimchi rated R baby.
NC 17.
[Andrew]- Alright, so guys like sourdough is PG.
Sauerkraut is PG 13 and then Kimchi's R.
[Roy]- Kimchi's rated R baby.
[Andrew]- I've tried to make kimchi a couple of
times myself at home and have failed.
I was hoping that maybe you could coach me through,
give me a play by play.
[Roy]- Yes lets do it.
[Andrew]- So this recipe starts with the blender.
Into it goes one cup of gochugaru,
one cup of chopped onion,
15 garlic cloves,
a quarter cup of peel ginger and two tablespoons
each of salt and sugar.
Before being asked an interesting question.
[Roy]- Where's this recipe from, by the way.
[Andrew]- This from some blogger that posted your recipe.
[Roy]- Oh, it's my recipe.
[Andrew]- Yeah its your recipe.
[Roy]- Oh (beep) Okay.
It felt very familiar,
but my recipe is very different than traditional.
Like a lot of people don't make a paste like this.
A lot of it is done where each of the ingredients are
somewhat separate. The fermentation brings it together,
brings the emulsification together. I'm a kid from the city,
you know, on the street.
And I was like, let's take the side route.
And then that was the blender.
[Andrew]- So this is easier would you say?
[Roy]- It speeds up the process without sacrificing
the process.
[Andrew]- I mean, that sounds like nothing but a good thing.
Moving on, we add two tablespoons of oyster sauce,
one tablespoon of soy sauce, a quarter cup of fish sauce,
two tablespoons of rice wine vinegar,
half a cup of water and help the medicine go down.
And then we're roughly blending everything together.
Just like roughly blended, like that.
Still kind of chunky?
[Roy]- As smooth as possible.
[Andrew]- Smooth as possible here we go.
Well rather we're blending everything together until it's as
smooth as possible.
[Roy]- Hmm. Right.
[Andrew]- Whoo, that was great.
[Roy]- You see how we've taken the carpool lane into
flavor basically?
[Andrew]- What have you got there?
[Roy]- Yes. (laughs)
[Andrew]- Took carpool lane to flavor town.
With our paste prepared
we're ready to apply it to our cabbage.
Just grab a bowl, grab your sauce and...
[Roy]- Okay.
Do you have like a half sheet pan or something like that?
[Andrew]- Yeah yeah yeah
[Roy]- Let's put it on there so that
from this angle so we can see it.
[Andrew]- Oh God you're good.
You're way better broadcaster than I am. Right?
All right now that you can see everything
we're just going to put the cabbage directly on the baking
sheet and just dump the paste all over.
[Roy]- Oh no, no, no, no.
Don't, you're not doing it all like that.
Get a spoon or a brush. This is the tedious process.
I want you to go layer by layer.
And what we're going to do is hopefully with the excess,
then we're going to cover the whole thing.
So you want to be very very meticulous with this process.
Try to get as deep into the crevices as possible.
[Andrew]- Where's the family show.
[Roy]- Every layer corner to corner.
Hopefully by the end of the whole thing
we should be able to see all the flavor in between
the layers, look at that, you know
you've created the first layer flavor
and then now what we're going to do is cover the whole
thing. Yeah and just massage it all the way in.
And not just a thin layer
but just really try to cover that thing
with as much paste as they can possibly hold. Wow.
Look at that.
[Andrew]- It's pretty righteous.
After giving the rest of our cabbage the same treatment,
wash your hands to chop some chives
only to celly of them again,
as you layer them between the cabbage as described and yet
another beautiful Roy Choy analogy.
[Roy]- Just like you would put like maybe nuts in between
almost like a baklava, to be honest.
[Andrew]- Next up
I'm putting some of the paste directly on the baking sheet
and rolling the cabbage in it.
[Roy]- Like you're rolling a log into chop nuts.
[Andrew]- After our logs are rolled,
something about that sounds inappropriate
depending on the size of your jar,
you may need to cut your cabbage in half, if so
make sure to cover the newly exposed edges in the spice
paste. And finally,
it's time to jar being careful to keep the layers of cabbage
together as you drop it in.
Just jam it on in there
adding any remaining bits of cabbage to the top and top it
with any leftover paste.
Then we're going to give the jar a few taps to make sure
that everything is settled.
That was real all right.
[Roy]- That was your initiation.
It's like getting a cut on the line, you know, or a burn.
[Andrew]- Yeah.
[Roy]- You have to get splashed.
Welcome to the club Andrew.
[Andrew]- Thanks man. (laughs)
If you'd like to omit your initiation into this illustrious
club, make sure to cover your jar with paper towel before
banging it down to settle it for its week's long journey.
[Roy]- What's going to happen in that bottle
in the next couple of weeks,
the product itself is going to lose some of its water,
the vegetables so that's going to shrink,
but what's going to grow is the gas.
You don't want to fill it all the way to the brim because
what will happen is you'll lava out.
[Andrew]- Is it not gonna explode or anything?
[Roy]- It may explode,
but the job to not making it explode is your maintenance.
[Andrew]- I got to burp it every day or how often
should I burp it.
[Roy]- If it is getting to the point where
it does look like it's going to burst,
then you wanna burp it.
But you don't wanna burp it as much as possible.
This you wanna keep kind of in a room temperature area.
Yeah. And then you move it to the refrigerator.
You should actually taste a little bit.
You can see that even in its most instant form,
it should be pretty delicious. Right?
[Andrew]- It's great. Mh.
[Roy]- Yeah. Imagine if that was with julienne cucumbers.
[Andrew]- I would snack on that all day it sounds amazing.
I'm very excited to try this.
I'm leaving her out for a few days
and then two weeks in the fridge
and then she's ready to go.
I'm hoping that people give this a try instead of sourdough,
because it has so much utility and so much flavor.
And it's gonna be more interesting on your Instagram feed
than being another (beep)hole
that's making sourdough start.
Roy thank you so much for your help, man.
That was so much easier than I thought I've been so
intimidated by this process for so long.
And that took like 20 minutes tops.
And it's going to make this amazing condiment that is going
to grow and change with time
and is gonna have myriad uses.
I really hope folks give this a try and it's all thanks
to you man.
[Roy]- Oh thank you, man.
I mean, you made it easy.
I thought I was going to be here for hours too.
I'm glad.(laughs)
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