Book Review: "Kimchi: Essential Recipes of the Korean Kitchen"

"Kimchi: Essential Recipes of the Korean Kitchen" by Byung-Hi & Byung-Soon Lim is obviously about Kimchi. Kimchi is a Korean fermented cabbage, sort of like German sauerkraut but spicy. Kimchi is probably the best known component of Korean cuisine in America (if not the only known component for many) and one reason for its acceptance into American cuisine over the past decade or so is because it is versatile and easily substitutes for sauerkraut and other acidic or spicy condiments. Beyond beer and bread, American cuisine largely gave up reliance on fermented foods like Kimchi. We are seeing these foods return to our diet (in thanks partly to the probiotic fad) and thankfully adding interesting flavor options. Admittedly, I do not have wide knowledge of Korean food so when I saw the opportunity to get an advance copy of a book about Korean food I knew that was an opportunity worth snapping up. The advance copy I received is a small part of the book but from what I've seen I expect to purchase the full version once it becomes available.

"Kimchi: Essential Recipes of the Korean Kitchen" is more than a handful of kimchi recipes and a pile of photos to fill space. There are, obviously, many kimchi recipes (roughly a third of the book). After offering many options to make kimchi, the book dives into recipes for using the kimchi in traditional Korean dishes and then rounds out the book with some other Korean recipes so you can put together a meal that isn't kimchi on kimchi. The recipes are brief and easy to follow. The deeper into the book you go, the more the recipes rely on putting together recipes from earlier in the book. That helps strike a good balance between creating authentic flavors and not having to rummage around grocery stores looking for pre-made ingredients or substitutes. There are recipes that use easily found ingredients in American supermarkets, which can be helpful if you do not have Asian grocers in your area. The book encourages the use of authentic Korean chili powder (gochugaru) but encourages you to try other chili powders if you cannot find the authentic ingredients. Perhaps the full book has a recipe for making gochugaru at home but that is something I would like to see.

Overall, "Kimchi: Essential Recipes of the Korean Kitchen" does a great job at presenting a wide variety of recipes in a very approachable manner. I do not feel like I need to go buy half an Asian grocer's supply to cook dishes but I do feel like I should find a handful of traditional ingredients to obtain more authentic flavors. I am generally a fan of using authentic ingredients but it is not always easy to find particular types of vegetables so having some recipes that use available vegetables helps add a lot of value to the book. The book is a good entry point into Korean cooking but the recipes seem solid enough that you could use them well beyond just learning the basics. Good stuff.