Garlic Mustard, Wild Garlic and Dandelion Green Kimchi

I had picked a lot of garlic mustard the other day (also known as jack-by-the-hedge) after work and discovered that it was just not a flavour that I liked, too bitter. Perhaps I had picked them too late? So strong flavours I though might quell this unpalatable flavour.

Off I went to the shop (being the lazy chef that I am) and got a tube of chilli paste, a tube of ginger paste and a tube of garlic paste.

There's really not a lot more to this recipe and perhaps it's not the 'traditional' kimchi recipe, I mean I can't afford gochujang and don't live near any foreign food shops so that was out of the question. Simple and effective, I wanted to keep it basic as this was my first attempt at fermenting anything.

I finely chopped all of my greens and added a lot of salt. I've seen other recipes using brines etc but I didn't want the extra water, a lot of these plants retain a lot of water anyway so I figured the salt would eventually leech it out of them. 

I massaged in the various pastes, added a splash of soy sauce that I found in the cupboard too and massaged it all into the salted leaves.

I put it in a jar (metal lid=bad choice with salt, I plan to transfer it) and then added a smaller jar filled with water to the top to squish the mixture down, the clingfilm on top of that.

It's really that easy to make, I'm not too worried about keeping it for too long a length of time as I love kimchi so I can't image it staying around for long. Perhaps a week in the fridge will be long enough for the flavours to really marinade the greens.