Probiotics are important but prebiotics too. Here is a kimchi recipe that can provide you with both.

As many of you have asked how to make kimchi or where to get it, I am posting a recipe for kimchi. For gut health which is the foundation for your immune system, probiotics are really important. Many people cannot tolerate the pill form of the probiotics and many bacteria from those pills will just die in the stomach acid. Even during the time when whole Asia had Sars/H1N1 spreading, somehow Koreans have survived due to this. They did a test on animals and proved that the subject with probiotics from kimchi helped them survive the virus. Let's get our guts healthier!

Traditional Korean Kimchi: you slice before serving.

Mak-kimchi: instead of layering the sauce between the cabbage leaves, the cabbage was cut after washing, then salting process and you can follow the rest of the recipe as the traditional Kimchi recipe.

Korean Kimchi Recipe

Ingredients:
Makes 3.6kg: adjust the ingredients if you want to make less.

For salting cabbage:

• 6 pounds Napa cabbage (3 to 4 heads of medium napa cabbage)
• ½ cup sea salt

For making porridge:

• 2 cups water
• 2 tablespoons sweet rice flour (glutinous rice flour)
• 2 tablespoons raw sugar

Vegetables:

• 2 cups daikon (white long Asian raddish) chopped in matchsticks
• 1 cup carrot chopped in matchsticks
• 7 to 8 green onions, chopped
• 1 cup or 3 big green onions chopped
• 1 chive (optional)

Seasonings and spices:

• ½ cup garlic cloves (24 garlic cloves), minced
• 2 teaspoon ginger, minced
• 1 medium onion, minced
• ½ cup fish sauce (find one without MSG)
• ¼ cup fermented shrimp paste with the salty brine, chopped
• 2 cups hot pepper flakes (Gochugaroo can be found at select Asian markets or Korean grocery stores)

Directions

Prepare and salt the cabbage:

1. If the cabbage cores stick out too much, trim them off.
2. To split a cabbage in half without shredding the densely packed leaves inside, first cut a short slit in the base of the cabbage, enough to get a grip on either half, and then gently pull the halves apart so the cabbage splits open. 
3. Cut a slit through the core of each half, 2 inches above the stem. You want the cabbage leaves to be loose but still attached to the core.
4. Dunk the halves in a large basin of water to get them wet. Sprinkle the salt between the leaves by lifting up every leaf and getting salt in there. Use more salt closer to the stems, where the leaves are thicker. 
5. Let the cabbages rest for 2 hours. Turn over every 30 minutes, so they get well salted. From time to time you can ladle some of the salty water from the bottom of the basin over top of the cabbages if you want to. 
6. After 2 hours, wash the cabbage halves a few times under cold running water. Giving them a good washing, to remove the salt and any dirt. As you wash, split the halves into quarters along the slits you cut into earlier. Cut off the cores, and put them in a strainer over a basin so they can drain well.

While the cabbage is salting for 2 hours, and in between the times you’re turning it over, you can make the porridge:

1. Combine the water and the sweet rice flour in a small pot. Mix well with a wooden spoon and let it cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes until it starts to bubble. Add the sugar and cook 1 more minute, stirring. Remove from the heat and let it cool off completely.
2. Pour cooled porridge into a large mixing bowl. Add garlic, ginger, onion, fish sauce, fermented salted shrimp, and hot pepper flakes. Mix well with the wooden spoon until the mixture turns into a thin paste.
3. Add the radish, carrot, and green onion, plus the Asian chives (or more green onions). Mix well. 

Make kimchi:

1. Spread some kimchi paste on each cabbage leaf. When every leaf in a quarter is covered with paste, wrap it around itself into a small packet, and put into a jar/container.
2. Eat right away, or let it sit for a few days to ferment.

On fermentation:

1. The kimchi will start fermenting a day or two at room temperature, depending on the temperature and humidity of your room. The warmer and more humid it is, the faster the kimchi will ferment. Once it starts to ferment it will smell and taste sour, and pressing on the top of the kimchi with a spoon will release bubbles from beneath.
2. Once it starts to fermented, store in the refrigerator to use as needed. This slows down the fermentation process, which will make the kimchi more and more sour as time goes on.