Kimchi, Sauerkraut, Kombucha, Kvass, Kefir – goodness even pickles, mustards, cheeses, sourdoughs and of course alcohol are all traditionally the result of fermentation. While some of these ferments can be a little tricky, good old Kraut and Kimchi are so easy it’s ridiculous.

You can buy fermentation kits, special bacterias and release valves but really all you need is a big, clean jar and veg and salt. That’s it. The kits and gear will probably give you a more consistent result and will no doubt make you feel more confident but they are certainly not the way I started fermenting and not essential. Why not start simply and then if the kimchi craze overtakes you look into specialty supplies later on?

Here’s Amber’s recipe for Kimchi based on the premise of use what you have.

You’ll need veg – start with the following for a pretty fail safe kimchi and then start experimenting –

Cabbage (whole one)

Carrot (2-3)

Celery (2-3 stalks)

Onion (1-2)

Garlic (to taste but at least 3 big cloves)

Chilli (to taste – not going to prempt this one for you but I like 2 hot ones)

Salt (2-3 tablespoons)

Chop them up – reserving a couple of the clean outer leaves of the cabbage- smaller pieces will ferment more quickly than larger pieces. I prefer cabbage shredded into about 2cm strips about 1/2cm wide with the other ingredients a little smaller.

Put all the ingredients in a big bowl and start to massage them. You’ll start seeing liquid come out of the veg – this is your brine which you need to keep.

When you can push down on the veg and liquid rises up above it, put all (brine and veg) into a large, clean jar. Press down as firmly as you can. Ideally you will have no more than an inch or so air at top of jar. Stuff your cabbage leaves on top so that the chopped veg are all submerged under the brine (this is important!). Put the lid on, put in a safe spot out of direct sunlight and forget about it for a week or so. In cooler weather ferments will take longer, in hot weather they will be quicker. This time of year you’re looking at about 10 days. When you look at your ferments you should see some bubbling happening – that is a good thing! I find with second hand jars a little liquid will escape and I like this (maybe put your jar on a plate so liquid doesn’t ruin your counter top)- it means the pressure in the jar won’t get too high. If you see no liquid escaping then you might like to ‘burp’ your jar just by slightly opening the top till you hear the pfssssh sound. It’s never happened to me but if pressure gets too high a glass jar could shatter (hence the precaution of the burp/slight liquid escape).

Your ferment will continue to ferment indefinitely but the taste will become more and more acidic which can be pretty unpalatable. When the bubbling starts to slow down a little is when your’re at your ferment sweet spot – if you don’t notice a slow down just work on 7-10 days.

Time to taste – it should taste slightly acidic.

If you get mould or a rotten food smell then something has gone wrong. A small amount of white mould on top is ok and you can just peel it off as everything underneath will be fine. However – if in doubt – ditch it.

Once you get going you can reserve some of the brine to start off your next batch.