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You’re making what?!?!  

So along with the Memphis style dry rub ribs, a Mediterranean food extravaganza, “Japanese” chirachi, and rack of lamb for this past week’s service/dining options – we opted to attempt to make homemade cucumber kimchee. Growing up in Hawaii, I found that recipes vary from person-to-person (not making my life easier) and often families have family secrets that aren’t really shared within the own family (again, not making my life easier). Mutha.  

What does cucumber kimchee taste like? The deafening first crunch followed by the slightly tart flesh then the gradual burn from the chili peppers from each oversized cucumber piece. Chasing after the heat is the calm of the cucumber meat itself, cooling your mouth from the onslaught of Hawaiian chili peppers. Heat, cool, crunch, soft, salty, savory…Basically, this could be the perfect pickled vegetable.   

For those that contemplate making your own kimchee, this isn’t an easy task. You just can’t make it and eat it immediately – well, maybe you could, but it doesn’t really taste like kimchee. But who has weeks to wait? Sadly, my childhood memories only offered up used pickle jars and peanut butter jars (yes real glass jars then) that housed this homemade awesomeness. So I made some calls back to Hawaii, conference call my family, and reminisced about a F.O.B. Yobo (Korean) restaurant in Wahiawa.  

Homemade cucumber kimchee

Ingredients include: Japanese cucumbers,  Hawaiian chili pepper water, Hawaiian salt, sugar, garlic, ginger, salted baby shrimp, fish sauce, chili powder, red pepper flakes, and a large ubiquitous pickle jar. 

Pretty standard stuff that you can get anywhere right? 

We will be serving these daily and rating them on a scale from 0-10. Categories to include crunchiness and taste. We are looking for an optimal crunch and taste factor. Never fear, we’ll keep you posted. 

Crunchy crunchy crunchy  

Reporting live from QuarryLaneFarms