The Kimchi Cookbook: 60 Traditional and Modern Ways to Make and Eat Kimchi

This book is way more than I expected. For a single-topic cookbook I anticipated a straightforward compilation of kimchi recipes. But this book far exceeded my expectations: The author has a very personable style of writing. By the time I was done reading through the pages the first time, I felt a certain satisfaction that is hard to explain. My senses were heightened and my brain was working through the logistics of how soon I could make a trip to my favorite Asian market. And I was wondering if it was too late to plant Red Holland peppers in my garden this year. If you thoroughly read this woman's instructions, you will have no problem making kimchi. If you have a fear of fermentation, it will be alleviated with the full-coverage instructions and tips in this book. And the information provided is smooth-flowing and easy to digest. The book provides so much worthwhile information, that after you have a few recipes under your belt, you will be experimenting with other ingredients and flavors to create your own signature kimchi. The recipes area all encompassing; some are for fast, immediate salad-type kimchi; some for Spring and Summer vegetables, and some for winter vegetables. Plus there are instructions for the different "cuts" of the vegetables, and some recipes that keep the vegetable somewhat intact and some recipes for square-chopped veggies. Pictures are of excellent quality and very helpful, too. Pantry items necessary to make kimchi are relatively few and are fully explained. Both English and Korean names are provided, so it will be easy to find them at your local Asian market or online. I picked this book up at my library, but today I ordered my own copy. If you are at all interested in eating kimchi, this is a book that has great value and will quickly earn its space on your bookshelf.

I wish I could say that I have tried many recipes in this book but the first one I tried was so amazing that I have made it now 3 times and have had trouble keeping my production up with my consumption. The recipe I tried first and keep making is for the cut up fermented kimchi using napa cabbage. If that is the only recipe I get to, this book will have been well worth its price. I have been fermenting for a few years now and have made napa cabbage kimchi before but the flavoring of this kimchi is so perfect for me such that I have not been tempted to tweak the recipe. I was tempted to tweak it the first time I made it since I thought it called for too much onion, but I was so wrong. It mellows during the fermentation process. This book has an excellent ingredient section that is very helpful in explaining the asian ingredients. It is not the best book, however, for someone who has never fermented vegetables before. For that person I highly recommend a book by Sandor Katz. I see that Amazon is selling The Kimchi Cookbook in combination with a Sandor Katz book which might be a good choice. For vegetarians, the author has substitutions for the non-vegetarian umami ingredients in the recipes. I live in a city with a number of asian markets and still some of the ingredients were hard to find (or for me to identify because labels are not usually in english and store clerks rarely speak english) but nonetheless I was able to obtain them. Also, pretty much everything is available on the internet now. If you are in an area where asian ingredients are hard to find I recommend getting the course ground Korean red pepper from Amazon. Substitutes for the Korean red pepper will not do. Happy fermenting!

I own many, many fermenting and kimchi-making books and this has become my go-to for all things "Kimchi", an all-in-one book source for the beginner and more experienced alike. The signature kimchi recipe (Mother-in-Law's Kimchi - my recommended 'gateway recipe' for a life time of devotion to kimchi, as is what happened to me) is delicious but so are many other recipes, too, depending on your produce, the season, your fermenting needs and taste buds I even grew perilla in my garden to add this year - a very good idea it turned out! I appreciate the "Cooking with Kimchi" section for using over-ripe kimchi, which, if you make as much as I do, is handy. Kimchi never really goes bad but after awhile it just is too pungent to be eaten 'raw', but just right for other savoury dishes like soups, pancakes, fried rice and beyond. It's a wonderful resource, both visually interesting and compelling, and fun. Enjoy!

There is stuff that I like and stuff that I like less about this cookbook. I was wanting recipes for kimchi made with vegetables other than cabbage, like cucumber and chives, and this cookbook is great for that. I also love how they give you the times not just for fermentation but for prep/setup as well. The directions are clear and easy to understand. Now the things that I didn't like. There aren't a lot of pictures. Maybe I'm just weird but I really prefer cookbooks that have pictures for each recipe, and this does not do that. Also the recipes for cooking with kimchi are just to "fusion" for me. I was hoping for more traditional Korean dishes that use kimchi, but they don't have any. The book says that it's traditional and modern ways to make and eat kimchi. More accurate it's traditional recipes for kimchi, and modern ways of using kimchi in other dishes. I would have preferred at least a few traditional cooking dishes that use kimchi...

it tells the story of korean kimchi, how it was made in the old country, and how u can make it at home anywhere in the world. there is alot of difference between home made and factory made kimchi, what i want is one of the fermenting pots they use to make it in. its like a urn about 3 foot high with a bowl type of lid on it. i went to some asian stores, and they know what im talking about, but none of them had any for sale. In the winter in korea, they bury the pot in the ground, since it snows there, and the kimchi fements while in the ground, some pots are small, a few gallons, and some real large, 10,20, 30 or more gallons! all with lids. the pot is called "Onggi " and the pot can be used to make kimchi,chile paste,soy sauce, etc. and there are dozens of different types of kimchi that u can make, and u can do it in a 1 gallon glass jar with a fermentation lock and lid and seal thats fits the jar, if u want to make smaller batches and try different types of kimchi, the book is excellent and the quality of book is too!

This book is great: 1. It explains very well the basics about making kimchi instead of just jumping into recipes 2. It has a lot of diverse kimchi recipes, I have been able to eat kimchi in many new ways that I did not know existed 3. I really like the spring/summer and fall/winter sections which include recipes that use what is in season 4. It is nice to read about some cultural context relating to kimchi I haven't tried the recipes from cooking with kimchi but they look delicious and I am looking forward to trying them.

We are missing Korean food here in the New Mexico desert, so we decided to make our own condiments. This little cookbook has been invaluable -- lots of nice recipes, easily adaptable.

OMG! The introduction alone is worth the price of this book! And the next chapter kimchi-101is icing on the cake! If you love kimchi this is the book for you.

Arrived on time with no hassles, the book itself is full of history and fantastic recipes for kimchi's and different ways to incorporate the wonderfully pungent condiment into your everyday cooking.

This is a very nicely written and illustrated book about Kimchi that should make you want to test and experiment with this somewhat unknown (at these shores) food. The author starts by giving a background to her relationship with Kimchi and what brought her all the way to publishing this book. This is then followed by a good primer of Kimchi 101 which then is followed by a very informative section on what's needed for the Kimchi pantry. What then follows are two different sections (Spring / Summer and Autumn / Winter Kimchi) that gives you recipes for different Kimchi's of varying grades of difficulty and preparation time. The final section contains recipes of dishes that have Kimchi as an ingredient - which shows that Kimchi is not just a condiment/side dish. All in all I must say that this book is very inspirational and gave me lots of interesting ready-made recipes as well as ideas on what I can try on my own once I've began my journey down the Kimchi trail.

Love the recipes. However, it would have been great if the recipes are in metric system.

é un buon libro con tante ricette, divise per stagione, anche se non è chiarissimo all'inizio.. comunque molto interessante!

Les explications des principes sont claires, les recette claires aussi. Bien illustré, mais il faut avoir un bon niveau d'anglais pour le suivre.