Simple Kombucha Recipe

On February 7, 2026 0 Comments - Cooking, Fermentation

What is kombucha?

In it’s simplest form kombucha is black tea fermented by a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY) in the presence of sugar. There are probably thousands of good articles out there that explain this process in great detail…so I won’t add to the pile. In this article, I only want to provide a simple recipe with a clear process for myself and anyone else who might want to try making kombucha.

Why kombucha?

In addition to having a long and mythical history, kombucha is purported to have many health benefits (the final ferment contains live probiotic bacteria). I make it because it is fun, it makes my kitchen smell interesting and funky and it is delicious and refreshing. It is a terrific substitute for soda when you are eating anything heavy or greasy. It’s great with pizza and burgers but even works with more delicate flavours like sushi and sashimi.

Ingredients:

  • 1 SCOBY
  • 6 black tea bags (I am using orange pekoe)
  • 1 cup regular white sugar
  • 12 cups of water

You can’t really “make” a SCOBY. You will have to buy one online or get one from someone who is brewing. Once you have one, it will grow with every batch and you can peel off layers to share with fellow brewers. I got mine from my lovely downstairs neighbour.

You can just use cheap everyday tea bags. I am using orange pekoe bags from the grocery store. Use black tea and avoid anything flavoured (for now). I like these round Tetley brand ones…they are very strong and brew up to a nice colour and aroma.

kombucha scoby
Sugar, SCOBY, cheap tea bags….a simple recipe for fermentation magic.
kombucha scoby in tea
A side view of my SCOBY. It is a jellyfish-like collection of bacteria and yeast suspended in a mat of cellulose. You can see a few layers here. Every time you brew, a new layer forms.
Top view. I keep my SCOBY in a round wide-mouthed storage jar. The SCOBY will grow into the shape of whatever container you keep it in. I think it looks like the planet Venus.

Process

fill pot with water
In a clean pot, bring 12 cups of water to a rolling boil.
add tea bags
Once the water is boiling, drop in the tea bags.
steeping tea for 15 minutes
Turn off the heat and let the tea brew for 15 minutes. It will be quite dark.
removing tea bags
After 15 minutes, remove the tea bags and discard.
adding sugar
Add sugar and stir well to dissolve.
cooling brew in ice bath
This brew needs to cool down to room temperature. Now is a good time to fold the pile of laundry in the corner of your room, call your mom or take a nice long walk until the brew cools off completely. If you don’t have time or patience to let this happen naturally, you can use an ice bath like I did above.
pouring brewed tea into fermenting container with kombucha scoby
Once cool, pour the sweet tea into a fermenting container (usually the one in which the scoby lives).
side view of full container
Here it is…scoby meets sweetened tea.
shows breathable cloth and elastic band used to close top of container
Cover with a breathable net or piece of fabric. Secure it with an elastic band to keep out insects. As with any ferment, insects (especially fruit flies) will be interested in launching a full investigation.
Make sure that the ferment can breathe. I use a cork to keep this lid open and circulate air. You don’t have to use a lid at all. I just happen to have one around. Let your kombucha rest for a week and then start to taste it daily. When you can barely taste the sugar and it has a slight tart flavour, it is ready for bottling. My apartment is cold in the winter so this usually takes around 2 weeks. If the environment is warmer, it will ferment faster. Taste it!

Time to bottle

Mine did take exactly two weeks….
finished brew in container 2 weeks later
This tastes and smells a little sweet and a little sour.
removing scoby
Remove the SCOBY. Make sure you wash your hands and that your bowls etc are clean. This is a very robust collection of beneficial microbes…you don’t need to sanitize everything but make sure it is freshly washed with soap and water.
Drop the SCOBY into a clean bowl.
removing 2 cups of brew to keep scoby in later
Measure out about 500ml (2 cups) of the fermented tea from the brew. This is the SCOBY’s home. It will need to be in this liquid to survive.
adding brew back to scoby
Add the 500ml tea back to the SCOBY and set aside for now.
shows glass bottles with swing tops
Prepare clean bottles for the brew. I am using glass, but plastic soda type bottles are probably safer. I know that my brew will likely not ferment much more in the bottle. Not enough to break glass anyways. If your brew has more residual sugar than mine, it may continue to actively ferment in the bottle and cause it to burst. If you do choose to use glass, these swing top beer bottles are designed to withstand a certain amount of pressure.

Additional Ingredients / Second Ferment

You can bottle your fermented tea just as it is. It will be delicious. Or, if you like, you can also add some aromatics as you bottle. I almost always add fresh ginger and dry hibiscus flowers to mine. The ginger adds a little sweet snap to the brew and the hibiscus add a little tang and a beautiful rosey colour.

Over the years I have tried citrus peels, cinnamon sticks, all kinds of herbs and spices and I always come back to ginger and hibiscus. It is a winning combination with the fermented tea. You can usually find whole dried hibiscus flowers in any spice shop, asian grocery store or Mexican grocery (where it is called Jamaica). It may also be under the name Rose of Sharon. It is all the same thing and definitely worth seeking out.

ginger and hibiscus
Fresh ginger and dried hibiscus flowers.
sliced ginger
Peel and slice the ginger. One thick slice per bottle (around a teaspoon).
ingredients portioned for bottling
Cut the ginger into matchsticks. It is much easier to get it into and out of the bottles in this shape. I have enough brew for around 5 bottles so I like to sort my aromatics into 5 piles to make sure they are more or less evenly distributed.
adding fresh ginger to bottles
Place the aromatics into the empty bottles.
adding brew to bottles using funnel
Fill each bottle leaving a little space at the top.
shows bottles full, 2cm from top
Like this…
bottles are closed
Make sure caps are clean and tight. These bottles are going to stay at room temperature for another 3 days. During that time, the sugar in the ginger or any residual sugar in the brew will reinvigorate the ferment to some degree.
storing bottles in metal pot
Because I am using glass, I keep my bottles in this deep metal steamer basket just in case one bursts.
Cover on too, just in case. There is not much of a risk of a bottle rupturing but, if one of them is chipped or cracked, it is possible. And it makes a huge mess.
Store in a cool place…I keep mine in a lower kitchen cabinet out of the way. You might consider setting a reminder in your phone calendar so you don’t forget about them. Mine will stay in here for 3 days or so.

Scoby Storage

putting scoby back into washed container for storage
Give the fermenting jar a good wash with hot soapy water, dry it and put the SCOBY back in.
Add back the 500ml of fermented tea from the brew.
shows scoby in liquid in container on shelf for storage until next brew
Cover and store at room temperature. I usually brew at least once a month. At that rate, the SCOBY stays happy and healthy at room temperature. If you are going to leave it for longer, brew up a small amount of sweet tea to refresh the liquid every 4 to 6 weeks.

3 days later…

After 3 days in the bottle at room temperature, place the bottles in the fridge. The brew is done.

shows finished kombucha sparkling in a wine glass
This turned out well. The colour is a nice rosy amber, it smells sweet and tart and the flavour is potent but also refreshing. It’s just a little fizzy. I am not the type of maniac to drink kombucha out of a wine glass, but these are the only clear glasses i have to show off the colour.

The finished brew is perfect as is but, feel free to add a squeeze of lemon or a few drops of honey or anything else you might want to try. If the flavour is too intense, you can cut it with bubbly water. I often do this if I am drinking this with more subtle flavoured foods.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please leave them below. I always look forward to hearing from you. If you enjoy the content and would like to contribute towards website maintenance and development, you can make a donation here. Thank you for reading TigerSalad.

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Roasted Peanut and Anchovy Banchan

On February 3, 2026 0 Comments - Cooking

Roasted Peanut and Anchovies:

This is one of my all time favourite Korean side dishes. It is much more common to see it called Fried Anchovy and Peanut / 멸차땅콩볶음 but this version has far more peanuts than fish so I reversed the name to Peanut and Anchovy / 땅콩멸치볶음. There are a few different grocery stores around me that sell ready made versions and I have tried all of them. Some are spicy, some are not and the ratio of anchovy to peanut is all over the place. Some are mostly anchovy, some half and half and some (in the cheaper places) are mostly nuts with just a few fish. Peanuts are cheaper than dry anchovies by far. This recipe is a mostly peanut version..which is really the one I love most. I also have an anchovy only recipe here.

Ingredients:

  • 250 grams (about 1.5 cups) dry non-roasted peanuts
  • 25 grams (1/2 cup) medium small dried anchovies
  • 45 grams (3 tablespoons) brown sugar
  • 50-60 ml (4 tablespoons) water
  • 4-5 cloves of garlic
  • pinch of korean chili flakes (gochugaru)
  • sesame oil and sesame seeds (optional but tasty)
  • olive oil for frying
Raw ingredients.

Feel free to change the ratio of peanuts to anchovies. You can even make this without anchovies for a vegan side dish.

The peanuts should be non-roasted and unsalted. I found these red skin dry (but not roasted) peanuts at a local asian grocery store. If you can’t find raw peanuts…you can substitute roasted peanuts and skip the oven step.

I am using medium small dried anchovies. They are roughly twice the length of a peanut and probably the biggest anchovy I would use without gutting them. I found these at a Korean grocery store in the freezer section.

You can use white sugar instead of brown.

Process:

On a tray, roast nuts in a single layer at 350F / 175C for 20-25 minutes.
Meanwhile, mince the garlic. Tiny dice is better than crushing the garlic into a paste.
Combine the water, brown sugar, garlic and chili flakes in a small bowl.
Mix it well until the sugar is mostly dissolved.
After around 25 minutes in the oven, the nuts with be somewhat darker, the skins will split a little and they will smell deliciously roasted. Taste one..if it still has a raw texture, put them back in the oven for another 5 minutes.
Once the nuts are finished roasting, drop the anchovies into a warm dry pan. Set the heat to high.
I like to mix them with my hands until they get almost too hot to handle. This will remove any moisture from the fish.
Once the fish are warmed through and dry, add some oil to start frying. I am using olive oil…around 1 or 2 tablespoons.
Add the roasted peanuts to the pot.
Mix together until everything is hot. They should already sound pretty dry and crunchy in the pan. The heat should still be set to high.
Once everything is hot, push the fish and nuts to one side and drop in the sugar, water, garlic mixture. Let it bubble and hiss until it reduces and thickens.
Once it has thickened up, stir to coat all the nuts and fish.
Keep stirring until the sugar starts to stick to the bottom of the pan. There will probably be some smoke and a strong caramel aroma.
Turn everything out onto a pan or plate to cool completely to room temperature. It will seem kind of sticky at first but once it cools completely it will have a crunchy candy coating.
After cooling, taste them and add any other seasonings you may like. You can dust a little chili flakes on them if you want them more spicy. I like to toss in some roasted sesame seeds and a squirt of good sesame oil. Store them in the fridge in an airtight container. They should last for a couple of weeks but really, they are so delicious that I am surprised if mine last even 3 days!

How to eat them

These are delicious to eat straight out of the container with a beer, like a bar snack while you watch a movie. You can, of course, serve them as a side dish to any food. Probably my favourite way to eat these is to use them as a crunchy topping on fresh salad. The deep savoury and nutty sweetness can really make a pretty plain salad extraordinary.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please leave them below. If you enjoy the content and would like to contribute towards website maintenance and development, you can make a donation here. Look forward to hearing from you and thank you for reading TigerSalad!

,

Kimchi Jjigae with Tuna

On January 16, 2026 0 Comments - Cooking

Kimchi jjigae with tuna (참치김치찌개) is a hot and satisfying dish that you can put together in a few minutes with as little as two or three ingredients. Below is a list of ingredients that I like to use but really, almost anything goes. Feel free to add different vegetables or leave out anything you don’t like. This recipe will make two smaller portions or one very large portion.

ingredients for kimchi jjigae with tuna

Ingredients:

  • 1 can of tuna in oil
  • 1 cup sour kimchi
  • 1/2 cup kimchi juice
  • 1 cup anchovy broth (or water)
  • 1/2 zucchini
  • 1 korean green chili pepper
  • 1 cup diced tofu
  • 1/2 onion
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 2 green onions
  • sesame oil
  • salt
  • sugar

The ingredients in bold are essential. Everything else is optional. I am using veggies I have in the fridge. You can add or subtract anything you like. As long as you have some fermented kimchi and a can of tuna, you can make this. I like it with extra veggies and especially with tofu.

Use canned not fresh tuna. It is not the same. I am using Korean tuna in oil but any canned tuna is fine.

There is a link in the ingredients to a recipe for anchovy broth. You don’t need it but, it adds a lot of depth to dishes like these if you use it in place of water.

Process

ingredients all chopped up
Chop all your veggies into bite sized pieces.
frying vegetables in stainless pan
Heat your pan, add some oil and cook vegetables until they are warm and a little soft and translucent.
adding in sour kimchi
Drop in sour kimchi and warm it through.
adding kimchi juice
Add kimchi juice if you are using it.
adding anchovy broth
Add anchovy stock if you are using it. If you don’t have kimchi juice or anchovy stock, don’t worry. Just add enough water to cover and cook the vegetables.
covering pot
Bring to a boil, lower heat to a simmer and cover with a lid. Cook for 20 minutes.
adding tofu and canned tuna
After 20 minutes, add in tofu and tuna. Stir gently and cook until warm. Now is the time to taste and adjust seasoning. Add salt if you think it needs it. Add sugar for a little sweetness. Stir in a little chili powder or gochujang if you want it a little spicier. I ended up adding just a teaspoon of sugar and it was perfect for me.
the finished stew in a black bowl garnished with chopped green onion, sesame seeds and sesame oil
Ladle into bowls and garnish with fresh green onion, sesame seeds and a little sesame oil.
finished dish of kimchi jjigae with tuna alongside a bowl of purple rice
I usually just eat this with a bowl of rice. I happen to have some peanut and anchovy banchan so I will have that too. Today I went shopping without my glasses to buy black AND white sesame seeds. When I got home, I found out that I actually bought white sesame seeds and a bag of black rice. Happy accident! Black rice is delicious. Add a spoonful of black rice to normal white rice in your rice cooker and you end up with this beautiful and savoury purple rice.

Variations

As I mentioned at the start, you can put just about anything you want into this dish. There is no definitive recipe for kimchi jjigae. Aged sour kimchi and a can of tuna are the only must haves. Experiment with all kinds of veggies. I also love smoky bacon in this dish. Fry it up with your veggies at the start.

If you are using water instead of kimchi juice, you can stir in a little gochujang for extra colour, flavour and spice if you like.

If you do not have anchovy broth but you do have anchovies and kelp on hand: take a square of kelp and a few dry anchovies and tie them in a little sack of cheesecloth. Add them to the simmering jjigae at the start. This will give you a similar flavour to anchovy broth. Just pull them out and discard after 15-20 minutes.

For a good recipe for homemade kimchi have a look HERE.

If you have any questions or comments or suggestions, please leave them below. I always look forward to hearing from you. If you enjoy the content and would like to contribute towards website maintenance and development, you can make a donation here. Thank you for reading TigerSalad!

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