Kimchi: Essential Recipes of the Korean Kitchen

You can’t really imagine Korea without kimchi. For thousands of years, their fermented vegetables have been absolutely essential at meals. In Korea, kimchi is so much more than food – it is a national cultural treasure, a universal health food and a part of the Korean identity.

Koreans are obsessed with good food, and the Lim family is no exception. For two generations, they have retained the proud tradition of kimchi at the Arirang Resturant in Stockholm. This book contains the family’s most popular recipes – common, as well as rarer, kimchi recipes, Korean everyday food and the ever recurring bi-bim-bap (which literally means ‘mixed rice’).

The Lim family present their version of a classic with lettuce, cabbage, chilli and ginger, but also the popular radish kimchi, kattugi, as well as the more unusual varieties with pumpkin, oysters, mushrooms, roots and other vegetables. Sourish, hot and tasty, kimchi is a wonderful accessory for most meals, not only Asian-style dishes but every imaginable Western dish.

Here are ‘insider’ tips on how to go about fermenting vegetables at home. Considering it is so incredibly simple, the result is amazing, beautiful, tasty and healthy, thanks to the built-in riches of good bacteria cultures found in vegetables.

Byung-Hi Lim & Byung-Soon Lim are sisters and together with their mother, Boo Mee Ja Lim and aunt Im Kee Sun, they run the Arirang Restaurant in Stockholm. The Arirang opened back in 1975 and was the first restaurant of its kind in Scandinavia. The ambition at the restaurant is to prepare everyday Korean food at its best. In 2009 they published the prize-winning cookbook Korean Food.