In Anticipation of RFK’s Kimchi Recipe, Here’s Mine

Welcome back to Saturday Night Social. 

It’s been a little more than two weeks since Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the launch of his cooking show—and so far, as expected, it’s been the latest indication he knows nothing of an otherwise obvious affordability crisis facing Americans. And while we’ve not yet seen any videos on his channel on how to make roadkill ratatouille or ground beef doughnuts (knock on wood!), I remain in fear that we’re about a few episodes out from Kennedy showing us how he, personally, makes his kimchi.

Because! Along with with flipping the food pyramid and pushing Americans into a barbarian-core, meat-forward diet, Kennedy’s one of several administration officials that reportedly gorge on kimchi and sauerkraut—so much so that the Wall Street Journal reported in June that there’s a “sulfurous odor” coming out the White House. And speaking on Katie Miller’s podcast (ugh) on Tuesday, State Secretary Marco Rubio said Kennedy “travel[s] with coolers of sauerkraut.” So just in case he’s got brewing a kimchi (or sauerkraut!) video, I’ll beat him to the chase is my (probably, definitely) superior recipe.

What you’ll need:

• A blender
• A saucepan
• A bowl—or turkey tray
• A plastic container
• A knife/chopping board

Ingredients:

• Salt. A lot.
• Napa cabbage—or a leafy vegetable of other kind
• Potato
• Garlic
• An onion
• Red chili flakes
• Fish sauce
• Salted fermented shrimp
  • (Chaos substitution: marmite)
• Carrots
• Green onions

Cool! First step is to get out your knife and chopping board, and pretty much just hack away at the cabbage, greens, or whatever vegetables you have in front of you. Make them bite size. <3

Next! Get out your bowl—or, really, the biggest vessel you have (I use a turkey tray), and massage your greens with enough salt to kill a small bird. Sea salt is best, but the economy. So use whatever you’d like. And make it salty. We’ll rinse it out later, anyways.

Leave things for about 30 minutes. Go for a walk. Make yourself a drink. Listen to The Strokes’ Is This It album. Whatever you do, don’t get sucked into RFK’s YouTube channel. 

After a half-hour, the chopped greens will be wilted and sad. Dump some cold water on them, rub them together, rinse, repeat. When your arms get tired, put one in your mouth and see if it’s no longer too salty to consume. If it is, wash everything again. If it’s not, proceed.

Boil a single potato, and wait another 20 minutes. And wonder why you didn’t do any of this while you were waiting for your greens to wilt.

When your potato is soft and mashable, add it to a blender with about six garlic cloves, half of an onion, about a spoon of the red chili flakes, a generous glug of the fish sauce, and a spoonful of the shrimp—or marmite. (Yes, I once lived in England with no attainable Asian shops nearby, so I had to get creative. And it worked. Sue me.) Blend it, taste it, and decide to add another 19 garlic cloves. If it’s not salty enough, add more fish sauce. 

And finally! With your paste ready, you can julienne your carrots and green onions in peace—and mix literally everything you’ve made so far into the aforementioned giant vessel. If it’s not looking red enough, add more chili flakes. If it’s not salty enough, add more fish sauce. Put it all in a giant tub. 

Now, you can either eat it then and there—or wait a few weeks for shit to ferment. Up to you, though. There are absolutely no rules. Except, OFC, staying off Kennedy’s YouTube.