Papaya Pickle

One of my favourites... and this recipe comes from the experience of eating too much pickled stuff!

Ingredients :
1 green papaya (about 1.2-1.5kg)
100-150ml white vinegar (Do get better ones, as this is for consumption)
250-300g sugar
8-10 seedless sour plums, cut to smaller pieces
20-25 cili padi (deseeded and sliced)
1 tbsp salt

Method :

Peel the papaya, cut off the part with the stump. Halve the papaya lengthwise, and deseed, using a tablespoon. Halve the papaya lengthwise again and cut into slices of about 2-3mm thick. Place in a casserole dish with cover or a glass jar with lid.

Add the salt and mix well. Stand for 5 minutes.

Add the vinegar, sugar, sour plum and cili padi and mix well. Sample the mixture, as more vinegar or sugar may be needed, depending on you. Once you are satisfied with the taste, cover the dish/bottle and put in the refrigerator.

You can start to eat the pickle after about 8 hours. Works very well as an appetizer.

Do make sure that the papaya is very raw and green, so that after pickling, it would not be too soft, and would have the crunchiness when you bite into it.

Kimchi Recipe

Being a person who loves trying new things, especially when it comes to food, I was ecstatic when I found this recipe at my friend's place. This friend of mine loves collecting recipe books, to flip through the pages to admire the pictures of mouth-watering masterpieces, & when I asked to borrow this particular magazine, she was more than willing to so, as I did promise her that I would let her have a portion of the Kimchi.

The recipe asks for 4 Chinese cabbages, but that's really too much if you were just experimenting, so I halved the recipe and this is how it goes...

2 Chinese cabbages, halved & washed

500g red chillies

1/2 onion

1/2 pear

1/2 apple

1/2 bowl cooked rice

50g dried chillies, soaked

1/2 radish, sliced

50g spring onions, cut into 2.5cm length

25g Chinese chives, cut into 2.5cm length

50g chilli powder

25g sugar

salt to taste

50g minced garlic

1/2 tbsp minced ginger

1 tbsp Korean fermented shrimps (If you cannot find this, you can substitute with cincalok)

125ml fish sauce

Soak the cabbages in salt water for 5-6 hours, and use a heavy plate to weigh the cabbages down during the soaking process. Remove cabbages from the salt water and drain well.

In a food processor (which I love using), blend the chillies, onion, pear, apple, rice and dried chillies. (Being overzealous, I accidentally put in the radish as well. Please remember not to do that!) Remove the blend from food processor and combine with the rest of the ingredients and mix well.

Stuff the cabbage with the mixture, starting from the innermost leaves and making sure every part of the leaf is covered. Repeat until the entire cabbage half is covered (layer by layer) with as much of the mixture as possible.

Put the kimchi into an airtight container and allow to ferment for 3-6 days at temperature below 20 degree C.

I put the kimchi into a square based Corningware casserole with cover and then sealed it with Clingwrap, as I do not own any airtight container that big to fit a Chinese cabbage. I stored this in the fridge and after a week, I harvested it. 

The taste... very fresh and spicy. On the whole, very appetizing. It was a success!