Making Kimchi

Heres a pic. They often come wrapped in plastic wrap.

Basically if its a package of red pepper flakes and there is korean writing on it then its the right stuff. If you want it more spicy, use 1 and a half cups, if you want it less, use just 1 cup

This one will be the trickest to procure. You also have to be careful. Thai fish sauce is usually a lot stronger so you will need less than 1/4 cup.

a quarter to half of this here

(about half of this much, the size of your thumb or so)

C'mon, its an onion. You know what they look like. Half of one of them

EDIT: intoyourrainbow suggests using apple or asian pear rather than sugar-- I think this is an incredible idea. If so, make sure to cut them fairly small.

Then, cut the cabbage in half lengthwise, from the stem to the leaves, giving two half-cabbages.
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Make another half-cut of the cabbage, through the stem. + Show Spoiler +

Now you're going to have to salt the cabbages. Salting them transforms them from the crunchy things they normally are, to the soft cabbage like in kimchi.

Get your half-cup of salt, and sprinkle salt on each leaf and stem-- you'll have to open them up individually, to get salt on every surface, but try to preserve the overall shape of the cabbage for now. Since the stems are much thicker than the leaves, try to put more salt on the stems.

Once they're all salted, put them in an empty pot or bowl, and let them sit for two hours.

After two hours, flip them upside down-- this just helps any areas that are less salted to get exposed to salt. Let them sit for another two hours.

Once this is done, soak and rinse them in cold water to get the excess salt off. Make sure you do this thoroughly since you don't want salty kimchi-- they should be floppy and have a similar texture to normal kimchi cabbage. + Show Spoiler +

Put the whole cabbage in the freezer. Keep it in there until it's solid. (When I buy a cabbage for kimchi, I just store it in the freezer until it's time to make it). Freezing causes the water in the cabbage to expand, bursting cell walls and causing the cabbage to lose its structure. This is what we want.

When it's frozen, take it out, let it thaw out in a large bowl. At this point, I like to take scissors and cut it up into small kimchi sized pieces.

Once thawed, drain all the water away, and gently squeeze any excess water out too. You want it to be soggy but not dripping wet.

-you can use radish too-- if you are going to add radish, then just increase the amount of paste you make. You'll have to sprinkle salt on the radish as well, and toss it around after 2 hours. Otherwise make as normal.

-Another tip, if you feel like making more, just double or triple etc. the quantities of everything. This is a relatively small batch, but it depends how much you like to eat.