If it seems to you like I’ve stopped hanging out the chocolate shops of Paris and now spend my days in Korean épiceries, stocking up on gochujang, cochutgaru, and gokchu garu, you’re right. The odd thing is that the Koreans understand me better than the French. They’re always surprised when I speak a few words of Korean and last week, I met some wonderful Korean gals that were pretty shocked to see me filling my basket with chile peppers, fermented shrimp, and garlic-chili paste.
Since the state of recipes—like my French—are always in a state of flux, after my first batch of cabbage kimchi (which came out pretty darn good), I kept thinking of ways to improve it. That, coupled with a newfound addiction to fried rice with kimchi, meant I was going through it at an alarming rate. Plus in my first batch, the color wasn’t as brilliant as I liked—although it made a pretty good bowl of kimchi soondobu jjigae…if I do say so myself.
So I headed over to Ace Mart, loaded up my (reusable) shopping bag, and armed with The World’s Most Expensive Scallions (3.8€, or $5.50 a bunch), I set out to make the penultimate batch of kimchi.
I also bought some very, very thinly-sliced, threadlike dried red peppers since they were too beautiful to pass up.
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