Hero’s Kale Kimchi Recipe? Yes, Please

Everyone who loves kale, raise your hand. Now everyone who loves kimchi, do the same. This is a Venn diagram that overlaps in all the right places: healthy, spicy, cool, Korean.

While I’m usually a napa cabbage traditionalist when it comes to my kimchi, I’ve wondered what would happen if I kimchi-fied kale. This is what fermenting nerds do — imagine all the things we can possibly pickle.

Then Adam Tsou of Quixotic Projects (aka Candelaria, le Mary Celeste, Glass and Hero) was all, “Oh, we’ve got a kale kimchi recipe.” And I was like, “F* you, you do not!”

I may have just thought that and instead said politely, “Of course you do because you guys are awesome.” And they are so awesome because they’re sharing their recipe with us.

Of course, you can always go to Hero and taste it yourself — along with crispy-juicy, double-fried Korean chicken (they are literally the only ones making this in all of Paris and probably France) and pork bun sliders that will make you cry, they’re so good.

But once you make your own kimchi, you’ll never want to buy it again. Says the fermenting nerd.

Yum

HERO’S TUSCAN KALE KIMCHI

Ingredients

1 kg of cleaned and stemmed Tuscan (or black) kale*
48g of salt
145ml of water
25g of glutinous rice flour**
20g of sugar
45g of fish sauce
100g gochu garu (korean chili flakes)**
40g garlic cloves
40g of peeled onion
10g of peeled ginger
2 green onions coarsely chopped
30g carrot julienned
100g daikon radish julienned

* Tuscan kale may be hard to find, especially in Paris. You can sub with regular kale, but it will be chewier.

** These ingredients are at your local Asian market, preferably Korean. We like Ace Mart on 63 rue Sainte-Anne, 75002.

Instructions

Salt kale for 1.5 hours.
Drain well and squeeze out excess moisture.
Cook rice flour, water and sugar over medium heat until it forms a thick paste. Stir constantly. Set aside until cool.
Blend fish sauce, garlic, ginger and onions in a blender until it’s a fine paste. Put in a large bowl. Mix in gochu garu. Add rice paste to chili mixture and combine well. Set aside.
Mix paste, cabbage, green onions, daikon and carrots together. Put in fridge.
Can be eaten immediately but best after 1-2 weeks.

Address

289, rue Saint-Denis 75002
contact@heroparis.com