Yesterday I was out checking the veggie plot and thought I should thin the beetroot. Beets come as compound seeds, and so they can germinate in bunches, and because they have been fairly slow to get going I didn’t have the heart to thin them when I should have. Now I’ve got big plants squashed together. It’s not survival of the fittest among beets in the garden, so it was well time to pull the smaller ones to make room for the big’uns.
Then I thought I should do the same with the wom bok (chinese cabbage) which are likewise crowded. My original plan for them was making kimchi, so that meant I needed to also pull some daikon, which were too small to be enough as you can see, so I picked red radishes to use as well, and finished off with some birds eye chillis.
The kimchi was my first try; no attempt was being made to be authentic, I just love it as a side dish. I brined the chopped wom bok overnight, rinsed it, then mixed it with the julienned radishes, carrots, spring onion, garlic and chillis, and packed it in a jar on the bench. To my surprise it’s fermenting already and tasting great although still ‘raw’. In a few days it should be interesting.
If it’s a success I might do the proper preparation using rice flour porridge, but I might leave the authentic raw squid out.
The beetroot we had shaved into paper thin slices as a snack, and we had the leaves in a salad (sourdough crumbs, tomato and black tahini, which stand up well to the robust beet leaves).