Beet and Pineapple Kimchi (kimchee)

Yes, it really is that good.

Here are the ingredients:

1 small head bok choy

1 medium sized carrot (julienned)

1 medium daikon (julienned)

1 Asian pear (julienned)

1 large beet (cut into slivers)

1/4 to 1/2 medium sized pineapple (chunked, to coin a term, into thin chunks)

1 big stack of ginger (minced -- think a 7cm by 2cm piece)

5 or 6 cloves garlic (minced)

Sea salt

1 onion (minced) -- I actually used a handful or three of green onion that I'm growing

5 to 10 thai chiles (chopped up, seeds and all)

3 or 4 capfulls of tamari

A large mason jar (2qts or more)

Chop up every last bit of the bok choy and throw into a bowl, making sure there's some salt touching every piece. Salt the hell out of it. Osmosis will draw water out of the cabbage and create a brine, which you'll use to ferment your kimchi. The purpose of a brine is to create an environment that's hostile to most microorganisms -- our friend lactobacillus being a happy exception.

The cabbage soaking should take anywhere from three to six hours. While this is happening, mortar-and-pestle the (minced) garlic, chiles and ginger into something you'd describe as a "slurry." Add this to the chopped onions and tamari.

Start julienning the vegetables (julienne: meaning to chop into long, thin slivers. It's helpful to peel them using a potato peeler, then chop lengthwise the peelings.)

Once this is all ready, and there is some liquid in the cabbage, pack it all into a 2qt jar. You may add some water, but be careful: as CO2 is created, the food moves around and will overflow if it's too high. Try to distribute the spice-slurry evenly, though it doesn't really matter -- the flavor will soak into everything. Cap it very loosely, or just covere it with a towel. Within a day you should see small CO2 bubbles sneaking out the spaces between the vegetables.

I usually leave it for a week before eating it (it helps to have two jars, so you can eat one while the other is fermenting) but realistically it will keep for a very long time. You might just want to get a larger vessel and triple the recipe. The ginger and pineapple give it a great "tang" while the beets turn it a striking color.

A note, in the off-chance this isn't obvious: make absolutely sure nothing you're using contains preservatives. A "preservative" is anything that "preserves" the food by killing (or inhibiting) microorganisms. You'll have tasty, pickled vegetables but not fermented kimchi if you carelessly use something canned or bottled.

Another note, as this isn't intuitive: Lactobacillus does have a PH threshold. If you add too much pineapple, it'll get too acidic, and that normally happy microorganism won't reproduce. The mix will, again, just be pickled fruit.

I usually use a half-cup of this with a cup of rice, fried with sesame and/or peanut oil and tofu, for a quick and flavorful breakfast, lunch or dinner. You can get more sophisticated and stuff dumplings with this and crumbled tofu, or serve it alongside any sort of fried tempeh, seitan, or meat-ish thing.

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