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There's no point in making dashi powder; the reason they sell higher quality packs at japanese markets is because there are people who do not like the taste of the MSG in Hondashi (in that the hondashi powder when used to make dashi stock is saltier than making dashi from scratch). They just want the powder because it takes 3 minutes to make. If you are making dashi from scratch, there are a couple of recipes to do but here's mine: Ichibandashi: 1 long strip of konbu soaked overnight with 4.5 cups of water, split into 2-3 pieces. Turn on burner; take konbu out when you see bubbles start to form at bottom of pot. Once boiling, turn off stove and add like 20-30g of bonito, waiting for it to settle (2-3 min), strain and done (but do not squeeze the bonito). Nibandashi: Take remaining contents above and boil in 2.5 to 3 cups of water, adding about 5g of extra bonito, for a total of 10 minutes. Strain and squeeze bonito. Once cooled put both of those in the freezer in a ziploc bag, or fridge in mason jar if cooking the next 3-4 days. That being said I use dashi powder sometimes too and I eat instant ramen so eh.
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Dec 3, 2018 07:13
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For easy homemade dashi, dried sardines (niboshi) are a simple and cheap alternative to katsuobushi. You can soak them overnight with kombu in the refrigerator for a gentle dashi or soak then boil for stronger umami and aroma. Here's a little picture / recipe : https://www.sirogohan.com/recipe/nibosi/ and a collection of dashi making methods: https://www.sirogohan.com/feature/dasi.php
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Dec 4, 2018 01:36
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They have a different flavor than standard katsuo + konbu awasedashi. I prefer my miso with the katsuobushi, but niboshi is much more common in Tokyo). Also taking apart the bitter bits of iriko can be annoying.
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Dec 4, 2018 01:47
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Yeah it's not really a substitute, though it is also good. I'm not sure how you get any easier than dashi, start to finish is 20 minutes and involves a grand total of three ingredients. Dried anchovy + kombu is the dashi you use for Korean food, same deal as niboshi. I always make fresh dashi for anything where it's the star ingredient like a clear soup, but if I'm doing something like a curry where there's a lot of other flavors involved too I'll used powdered.
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Dec 4, 2018 01:49
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Casu Marzu posted:I love instant ramen. There's a lot of packs I can't find easily in the US that are legit delicious. Nissin Raoh is better than 95% of what you can get in North Carolina. I wish I could find the Sun Noodle kits. BTW I don't think I ever mentioned this, but Grand Fromage we tried the burnt miso ramen in Kyoto back in August and it ruled, so thank you.
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Dec 4, 2018 21:07
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 Nukamiso in a pouch 
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Dec 12, 2018 00:52
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Mons Hubris posted:BTW I don't think I ever mentioned this, but Grand Fromage we tried the burnt miso ramen in Kyoto back in August and it ruled, so thank you. Glad you liked it, that restaurant is my first (and fourth and sixth and...) stop if I'm in Kyoto. Good service too, last time I was there I was dumb and ordered in Japanese and accidentally said shio ramen instead of shoyu. They replaced the bowl for free when I mentioned I was a moron. POOL IS CLOSED posted:
Neat. It has everything in it and is already colonized? How much did that cost? I'd read they sold starter bags like that in Japan. My nuka crock is smelling stronger after a few days of moving it right onto the furnace vent during the daytime. No off smells, just stronger nuka-ness, so I think that helped it out quite a bit. My kombu and chilies are still intact but wiggly, the garlic is sort of translucent, and the ginger knobs seem to have entirely vanished into the guts of the microbes. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Dec 12, 2018 |
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Dec 12, 2018 01:33
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This one was $34 from a third party seller in Amazon. I’ve seen them go for twice that on some dropshipper sites. Originally it was supposed to arrive in January, so I’m glad the thing got through customs fast — the smell is quite mature, just a touch sour. (I think this one might have sakekasu too?) The nukasacks are already seasoned and colonized; they’re definitely not the same as the inoculated dry bran with seasoning and starter culture included. Care seems pretty similar to the traditional method except that some other instructions I found recommend storing the bag in the fridge and stirring every 2-3 days. I haven’t finished translating the info on the back of the bag (so many kanji I don’t know, jesus), but if there’s anything new I’ll be sure to share. Sounds like your bed is going well! Ginger and stuff can definitely vanish over time. Add more when you feel like it needs more, though since ginger ferments very easily, I recommend being more conservative with it than with other seasonings. Dried tangerine peel is a nice add in too. I should probably make an updated guide when I’ve got a new batch going... I really liked using the garlic in simple sautees once it was pickled. Maybe once I’ve got a good bed going again, I’ll try pickling and then roasting a whole head.
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Dec 12, 2018 01:59
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I'm a loving idiot and I decided to make Osechi-ryori from scratch: https://imgur.com/a/NNhDJrn
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Dec 31, 2018 04:08
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Nice. How long did that take and how many things did you have to wash?
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Dec 31, 2018 04:53
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A ridiculous amount of washing, but I kept re-using pots and washing them after cooking things. 15 minutes of prep on Day 1. 4 hours of prep/cooking on Day 2 and then 30 min later in the day checking things that were simmering 4 hours of prep/cooking on Day 3. And like one hour for shopping but the Japanese market literally carries every main ingredient for osechi the 3-5 days before New Years.
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Dec 31, 2018 06:31
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How the hell am I supposed to use onigiri molds properly? I have the kind that makes two at a time and has an optional divot for making small holes, but I have no idea what that's for besides maybe sticking a little filling in. Am I supposed to put rice -> filling -> rice then press? I tried that and I ended up making a hilariously big rice/tuna-mayo sandwich. If I bought this thing I'm drat well going to actually use it, so I might as well learn how.
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Jan 6, 2019 00:39
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You can ignore the removable divot. It's for making a dent in the outside of your onigiri that you can put a bit of umeboshi or pickle or something for those pretty instagram-worthy onigiri. Step one: Splash some water around inside the mold, then shake it back out again. Sprinkle a little seasoning into the barely damp mold. Just a bit of salt is fine, or maybe some furikake if you want. I use Johnny's seasoning, what of it Step two: Put some rice in there. Warm or hot rice will cohere better. Fill it up about 2/3 of the way, then use your finger to push a well into the rice. Spoon your filling into the hole, then put more rice on top. Digging that little well should help keep your filling from trying to escape out the sides. Also, you don't need a lot of filling. Like maybe half as much as you think. Step three: Put the lid on and give a squeeze, but don't crush it. If it doesn't squeeze shut, you used too much rice. If it doesn't squeeze at all you didn't put enough rice in.
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Jan 6, 2019 01:40
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onigiri molds what the gently caress? use your hands you loving sperg.
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Jan 6, 2019 02:38
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Mons Hubris posted:Nissin Raoh is better than 95% of what you can get in North Carolina. I found some of those SUn Noodle things at the local Japanese grocery and drat they are good!
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Jan 6, 2019 08:40
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Stringent posted:onigiri molds what the gently caress?
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Jan 6, 2019 10:32
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I made Cooking With Dog’s tsukune again and this time I took a pic before shoveling it all down my beer hole.  Clockwise: leftover namasu, miso soup, rice with umeboshi furikake, chicken tsukune I’m mixed salad dressed with a little rice vinegar. The sour flavors were great with the tsukune since I’m not usually excited about sweetened meat dishes. The texture of the meatballs was great and since ground chicken is reasonably cheap here, I’ll be adding this to my regular repertoire. Scaling it up is easy, too; leftovers are good lunchbox fodder.
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Jan 7, 2019 01:37
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Nice
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Jan 7, 2019 02:02
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Here's a helpful 4 minute instructional video on how to make おにぎり (or JAPANESE RICE BALL in American) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJZuQvmSR2k
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Jan 7, 2019 16:03
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I haven’t seen that in quite a while, lol Im going to a koji workshop Saturday. Would y’all be interested in pics and a write up when the time comes? It’ll cover some basic applications like shiokoji, how to make a couple styles of fermentation chambers, and how to actually inoculate grains with kojikin. Aside from the fact that it’s about koji, the class isn’t super focused on traditional Japanese cuisine (and koji isn’t exclusively Japanese anyway). If growing mold is a little too obsessive for the thread, I’ll plonk it in the pickle thread instead.  Also, my nukamiso beds are alive again, so if anyone wants some starter, I am ready to help.
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Jan 7, 2019 23:16
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Stringent posted:onigiri molds what the gently caress? Find a better way of expressing yourself, friend. There is no need for this sort of aggression over rice.
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Jan 8, 2019 02:56
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Liquid Communism posted:Find a better way of expressing yourself, friend. Sorry, I didn't even know they existed and was kinda shook.
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Jan 8, 2019 04:13
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Stringent posted:Sorry, I didn't even know they existed and was kinda shook. Daiso stopped existing??? Pour out a ramune for our dead homies. For anyone else who has never heard of such a thing, but does need help, Makiko Itoh shared a method for molding them in the corner of a plastic bag ages and ages ago.
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Jan 8, 2019 06:03
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POOL IS CLOSED posted:I haven’t seen that in quite a while, lol I'd be very interested in pics and/or a write up wherever you post it. I've had some dumb ideas about koji/brewing/fermentation in general kicking around for a while and never hurts to get more insight.
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Jan 8, 2019 06:54
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POOL IS CLOSED posted:I haven’t seen that in quite a while, lol You should definitely do a write up and crosspost it in both threads. Koji and it's products are the basic pillars of Japanese food culture. Also, ask some questions about amazake, hopefully they'll give you a cup or some advice about how to make it with the equipment on hand.
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Jan 8, 2019 09:02
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Amazake is, happily enough, pretty easy to make and I can do a separate write up of that in the future too. I’ve made it in a rice cooker (sikhye too lmao). The important thing there is not to accidentally get shio koji by mistake ahaha who would ever do that 
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Jan 8, 2019 14:35
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amazake is easy to make, but don't be like me and end up making too much...
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Jan 9, 2019 03:45
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Tendales posted:You can ignore the removable divot. It's for making a dent in the outside of your onigiri that you can put a bit of umeboshi or pickle or something for those pretty instagram-worthy onigiri. I’m good at digging into wells. This helps a lot! Thanks! Stringent posted:onigiri molds what the gently caress? I tried being handsy and ended up with tunamayo-rice mash patties and I lost like a layer of skin on my palms. gently caress it, mold works. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 14:56 on Jan 9, 2019 |
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Jan 9, 2019 14:53
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The only thing I find good about onigiri molds is that they produce very consistently sized onigiri. They're good for beginners, essentially.
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Jan 10, 2019 22:52
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Anyone have good suggestions for tofu? I'm not a huge fan, but a block of extra firm got left at my place.
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Jan 11, 2019 01:25
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It's not Japanese but home style tofu is one of my favorite Sichuan things. Every place has its own recipe, here's an example: https://www.chinasichuanfood.com/home-style-tofu-tofu-stir-fry-recipe/
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Jan 11, 2019 02:30
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Japan rarely uses extra firm in the same way Chinese cooking does. You can try iri-dofu or to make a shiraae out of it, but those call for standard firm tofu instead of extra firm, which is often best for stir frying.
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Jan 12, 2019 10:13
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Koji is the Japanese name for a collection of mold fungi in the Aspergillus genus, most famously A. oryzae. Koji has been domesticated and used for over two millennia; the earliest known recorded mention of it is in a Chinese text called The Rites of Zhou, one of the classical Confucian texts. Koji’s use is widespread: it pops up in Chinese jiangs, douchi, and liquors; it’s present in Korean nuruk, a dry culture medium used to make makgeolli and soju; and of course it’s critical in miso, soy sauce, sake, and shochu in Japan. Aspergillus oryzae is one of humanity’s oldest friends. “Koji” is used a little more broadly outside of Japan to refer to both inoculated media like rice as well as the koji spores themselves, though the more proper term for the spores alone is “kojikin.”  I’m writing this up after attending a koji workshop by Rich Shih of Our Cook Quest and Nicco Muratore, CdC of Commonwealth. I’ve worked on and off with koji over the past several years, but I’d never made my own. My usage has bumped up against the limits of my willingness to get koji shipped to me, and newer resources are sharing more simplified ways of inoculating rice, barley, and other starchy media with koji than were previously (publicly) known.  But before I get into the “how,” I’d like to get into the “why” — as in, why bother to do this? Individual enthusiasts like myself may get into it to make ingredients and brews not commercially available and for the joy of mastering a process. Farmers are getting into this as a way of creating value added products and reducing food waste. Restaurants are using koji products to reach a more sophisticated audience with unique flavor profiles and a means of speeding the dry aging process of meat and charcuterie. If you want to experiment with homemade miso, soy sauces, liquid aminos, pickles, marinades, the dry age process, aged charcuterie, homebrewing wines, and more, and you like the idea of making your own live culture starter, this post on koji is for you.   Incubation Chambers Koji prefers nearly tropical growing conditions: 86 F and 70-75% humidity. It doesn’t like to be wet or soggy, so moisture and condensation control are critical, and it requires oxygen, so air circulation must be accounted for. Some people go wild and buy expensive temp and humidity controlled fermentation or aging chambers and others rig up fridges with temp/humidity controls, but you don’t have to go crazy. Above are a couple examples of what Rich and some chefs are doing. The first is a watertight cooler with a 150W aquarium heater, an air stone, and an aquarium air pump suitable for a 10 gallon tank. The bubbler set up takes care of air circulation. Partially fill the cooler with clean water, let it reach temp, and you can rest your trays — hotel trays were favored here — on the lip of the cooler or if they’re a bit smaller, use glasses to set up feet for the tray(s) to rest on. With the koji tray inside and covered by a dampened cloth, you’ll close this up and have a good fermentation chamber you can also use for other similar projects. The second option uses one of those clear plastic restaurant tubs, an immersion heater like an Innova, a hotel tray that can fit inside, some cups to hold the tray above the water, and plastic wrap to cover the top of the tub. You’ll note that this set up isn’t insulated, so you may need to compensate by putting this chamber in a warm area like by a fridge compressor, radiator, etc. You can also compensate with blankets and a heating pad. This method also has more trouble from condensation dripping from the plastic wrap and with air circulation, so using the damp cloth and keeping a corner peeled back are important. Other folks are also using collapsible bread proofers, big dehydrators (if yours has a fan that can’t be shut off, you’ll want to make a chamber to put inside the dehydrator to protect your koji from drying out), ovens with their oven light turned on, and even egg incubators. The traditional method is basically a big cedar sauna filled with cedar trays that hold the koji rice.  Spores and Storage GEM Cultures is probably the most popular source for koji spores in the US. They have a pretty Web 1.0 site and you order by email, but they’re legit. The package says you can make about 5 lbs of miso, but you can really make a lot more. Rich got the commercial spore pack and is only starting to run low four years later after giving a fair amount away. Working with koji spores only demands food safety levels of sanitation. You may choose to work with food safety gloves, but as long as you wash your hands, you don’t absolutely have to. People with compromised immune systems should take extra precautions to avoid inhaling the spores if they choose to work with koji ; Aspergillosis is rare, but it’s no joke. In general, nobody needs to be huffing yeast, koji spores, flour, or any other kitchen powders anyway, so move slowly and carefully when working with kojikin or sporulated koji. The danger is low but it does exist. Depending on your spore kit, your spores May or may not be cut with rice flour. You need to cut the spores if they’re not in order to improve the even distribution of the kojikin. This will also help you stretch the amount of product you can make! Kojikin are a pretty aggressive fungus so they really want to grow. To cut your spores, start by toasting rice flour to drive off moisture and destroy any microorganisms that might compete with the kojikin. Do not use any whole grain flours for this: bran will go rancid. Use a ratio of 10:1 toasted rice flour to spores, mix together in a big, sanitized, dry, sealable glass jar, and keep refrigerated. These spores will remain potent for years under good conditions.  Growing Koji Sanitize your kitchen and equipment like you’ve got someone you want to impress coming over. Koji isn’t as picky as mushroom spores, but you want to follow best kitchen practices for this if nothing else. White jasmine rice (that is, with the hulls polished off) is the easiest growing medium for koji. Wash the rice and steam it in a towel-lined bamboo steamer or perforated metal steamer for about 35-40 minutes, starting with when steam rises from the steamer basket. You’re aiming for individual, separate, somewhat al dente grains; they feel firmer and almost rubbery compared to rice steamed as usual. If the rice can be squeezed into a ball but still crumbles easily, you’re on target. (You can also use a combi oven for this, but it’s gonna take you like two hours.) Break up the rice clumps without smashing the grains and let it cool in the fermentation tray. The grains need to be separate to provide airflow and surface area for the spores, so run the lumps between your hands and get that stuff evenly spread out. Noma recommends double gloving to deal with the heat. The rice needs to cool to less than 110 F — room temp is fine. You can use down to 1/8th of a tsp of cut kojikin for 4 lbs of cooked grains. Sprinkle the spores over the grains and make sure to wipe the spoon in the media after, then turn and mix the grains very thoroughly but gently. Don’t compress the rice. Cover the tray with a clean, damp (not soggy!) linen tea towel and place in your fermentation chamber. After 12 hours, you’ll turn this mixture very thoroughly again. You probably will not notice any change at this point. In 12 more hours (the 24 hour mark), turn the koji again. You may notice little dots of very pale yellow, white wisps of hyphae, and a sweet fragrance. These are good signs! Furrow the rice into rows. This helps with temperature, oxygenation, and moisture control. Make sure to check the temperature of the koji occasionally, as the enzymatic activity produces heat and can cause the koji to overheat and kill itself in a closed environment, and make sure the towel stays damp but not soggy. At 36 total hours, fold the koji throughly again and furrow it. You might choose to stop here if you intend to use the koji to dry age/cure meat products. At 48 hours, the koji medium might be too sweet for a savory meat application. To store, pack it in a container, sealable bag, or vacuum seal it and refrigerate. This will last 3 weeks - 1 month before the enzymatic activity declines too far. Fermentation will slow but continue in the fridge. You can also freeze it or dehydrate it. Next time: Uses & Errata
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Jan 14, 2019 20:57
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POOL IS CLOSED posted:Koji is the Japanese name for a collection of mold fungi in the Aspergillus genus, most famously A. oryzae. Koji has been domesticated and used for over two millennia; the earliest known recorded mention of it is in a Chinese text called The Rites of Zhou, one of the classical Confucian texts. Interesting and good effort post!  I have very little experience with Japanese cooking though I love Japanese food. So my interest is purely academic. But looking forward to more.
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Jan 14, 2019 23:04
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 Koji Applications Koji has a wide variety of sweet and savory applications thanks to its combination of enzymes. Amylase breaks down starches to sugars for that immediately obvious sweetness, but the smaller amounts of lipases and proteases that koji produces break lipids down into fatty acids and proteins into amino acids. Too much of these can create scents we typically associate with decay, but a balanced level makes an enticing scent and flavor humans crave — the savory taste, umami. Shiokoji The first and simplest thing you can do is make shiokoji, a lightly fermented marinade for meat and seafood. The ratio is one part water to one part koji rice, with 10% salt (all percentages in this post will be based on the amount of koji unless otherwise specified). Allow the shiokoji to ferment in a nonreactive container for 5-7 days. This will keep under refrigeration for a month. After that, the enzyme activity in the koji will have declined too far. Shiokoji can also be frozen. To marinate, you can use a food savr or other vac seal system or even a ziplock baggy, but for those avoiding disposable plastics, you can also use Nicco’s cheesecloth method. The ratio is about 8 oz shiokoji for 10 lbs of meat, so you really don’t need much marinade. For red meat: Wrap the meat in cheesecloth, wet the cloth with shiokoji, place in a single layer on a tray, cover, and refrigerate for 18-24 hours. Turn halfway through. After, remove the cheesecloth and rinse off the koji, lightly season the meat and cook as usual. You will find that the sear will develop very quickly and you may need to finish cooking in a preheated oven. For fish, you’ll need less shiokoji and less time. You can marinate the fish in the morning and use it in the evening depending on the cut and thickness. Too much time will cure the fish. The recommended preps for a shiokoji marinated fish are roasting or poaching; pan frying may leave you with a very caramelized fish that appears burned. Commonwealth in Cambridge does a fish crisp with egg white aminos, chinkiang vinegar, shiokoji, mushroom miso, and soy sauce that is amazing. We had the salmon version during the workshop and I’d fight someone to eat it again. For poultry, use the same ratio as red meat, but you will need less time; a day is usually more than sufficient depending on the cut. If you’re using skin on poultry, try to get the shiokoji under the skin as well. Nicco gave an example of a 20 lb whole turkey being marinated for 36 hours. (I’m trying this on the next turkey I make... and today I’m marinating a whole chicken.) If you buzz your shiokoji smooth in a blender, you can probably just wipe the excess marinade off your meat or wheatmeat. Be aware that the residue may lead to a lot of coloration when you cook. Bettarazuke Traditional bettarazuke are root vegetables hand rolled in salt, pressed with a weight, and then pickled in a paste-like pickling medium. Rich shared two methods for making them. First, select vegetables of similar size and thickness so they can lie in the bottom of your pickle crock or tray in a single, even layer. Then wash and dry your whole root vegetables but don’t peel them. Roll them in salt, pressing hard so the crystals are embedded in the vegetables’ flesh and the whole vegetable is well coated. Carrots, burdock, and other very firm root vegetables are a good starting point for learning this technique. Then arrange the vegetables in a single, even layer in your pickling container and cover with a weight. You’ll want something around 20% of the weight of the vegetables. This weighting process may take a couple of days; you want the vegetables to become flexible. They may end up compressed by a third of their original size. Once flexible, drain off the fluid and add a 2:2:1 slurry of koji, cooked grains or starches, and a light alcohol like sake or a not hopped beer, plus 5% salt (by weight of the slurry). Ferment for 3 days or to taste. Obviously if you already have shiokoji made, use that instead of koji rice and salt. The bettaramiso will be wetter but that’s fine. The cooked starch can even be stale bread. Rich also offered a smaller scale version that avoids processing the vegetables. Pack part of the slurry into a glass jar or other pickling container and start adding cut up vegetables and more slurry til the jar is full. Cap with a thin layer of salt to discourage mold or a 2-3% brine. (I would recommend the salt cap plus an ad hoc drop lid of parchment paper and a small weight, like pie crust beads.) Amazake This is a simple recipe of one part koji to one part cooked grain and one part water. Ferment for 3-5 days at room temperature or overnight in a rice cooker set to warm mode. Don’t use shiokoji to make amazake unless you want to be sad. Feel free to use a mix of grains; my favorite is made with part brown glutinous rice. Amazake is a sweet and very slightly alcoholic porridge. It’s kind of a proto-sake, though I’d say it’s closer to makgeolli than sake. Apparently it makes a killer horchata! You can blend it smooth to use as a milk replacement in drinks, or add a little acid and make amazake ice cream. Blend it with other milks to have a good ole time. If you let amazake ferment too long, it will start developing vinegar, alcohol, and acetone notes from the presences of acetobacter, alcohol-producing yeasts like Saccharomyces, and Pichia yeast. A little of this is fine if you like the added complexity, but these can quickly become noxious. Of course if you let it go at this point, you may eventually wind up with a vinegar, but I don’t know what to tell you about its usability.  Miso Miso is beautiful because while it is a very slow process, it’s also simple to set up for small batches. You need a medium with a sufficient amount of protein to develop the savory flavor, as well as a balanced amount of fat. (Too much will leave you with a rancid-smelling end product, so take care with recipes involving very fatty seeds and nuts like hazelnut.) When making miso, use a healthy, strong koji for best results. Don’t be like me—I’ve got a heckpaste of 3 years old dehydrated koji and old beans going because uhhh why not? But if you want and expect a good product, start with good ingredients. This recipe is based on the peaso from Noma’s Guide to Fermentation. Please use a scale to ensure reasonable accuracy. Yield: 2.5 kg “peaso” 800 g dried yellow split peas (or other dried beans) 1 kg koji 100 g noniodized salt (I prefer Diamond kosher) This is a lower salt recipe than many traditional versions. My miso is 22% salt, for one example. Additionally, Noma uses a pearl barley koji here, but you can use koji rice or other koji grains instead. The outcome will be different from what Noma makes, but this is your project, so own it. Experiment with ingredients local to you. This recipe uses a ratio of 2/3rds koji to the weight of the cooked peas and the salt is about 6.6%. Various styles of miso adjust these ratios to meet their purposes. Make a drop lid and pick weights that will fit into your crock. To make your own drop lid, cut a circle or whatever of parchment or wax paper that will fit fairly snugly into the crock, wall to wall. Cut a less snug piece of cardboard that leaves a small gap all the way around. Put the cardboard in a water tight plastic bag. Pick, wash, and soak the peas in double their volume of cold water (4 hours for split peas and small beans, overnight for larger beans like soy or kidney). Drain, add the peas to a pot, add double their volume of fresh cold water, and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and skim off any scum. Stir occasionally and cook until soft, about one hour for split peas. Drain, reserving the bean fluid, and cook to room temperature. Measure out about 1.5 kg of cooked peas, then mash them until mostly smooth. Grind your koji, if fresh, to a coarse meal with a food grinder or food processor. Combine the peas and koji. Before you add salt, test the texture. Squeeze a handful of the mix into a ball. If it makes a compact ball that can hold together, you’re good to go. If it crumbles, it’s too dry. If it’s oozy or sloppy, it’s too wet. To correct a dry mix, make a 4% brine of the reserved bean cooking liquid and add gradually until the right moisture is achieved. To fix a wet mix, spread it in thin layers on sheets and dry in at 49 C/104 F in an oven or dehydrator on the lowest settings, checking the texture frequently. Be careful not to let the mix overheat or your koji will be ruined. Add the salt, mix thoroughly, and brace yourself to pack it into a non reactive vessel you won’t reclaim for about a year if all goes well. I used the thrown ball method, where you pack the miso mix into balls and hurl it to the bottom of your container. Noma recommends packing the paste in one handful at a time starting with the corners and edges and pressing it in. The thing to notice is that you must do your utmost to avoid trapping air in the miso. Mash each layer as you pack your crock. Once it’s full, sprinkle the surface with salt, place the parchment paper piece on top, then the cardboard piece in a plastic bag, and then your weight. A 20% weight is good here. Your miso will compress as air is pushed out by the weight. You may also want to place your crock in a bowl to catch possible overflow, because guess what! There’s a byproduct of miso production: tamari. In 3 or 4 days, take a look. It probably won’t have changed very much, but it may smell a bit sweet, and that’s a good sign. If it has soured, your miso was contaminated with lactobacillus and you have to start over. Pour off any pooled liquid and strain it into a little jar. This is the beginning of your tamari! It will age and improve as you add the exuded fluid from your miso to it. This also helps manage your miso’s moisture level. Right now I have about 6 oz of tamari. Check your miso weekly. White mold may form on any surfaces exposed to air; this is probably koji. Mold can’t penetrate far into the koji thanks to the tight packing, low moisture, and high salt content. You can scrape that off when you harvest the miso. Scrape a patch aside when you want to taste it. Miso is usable at 3 months, good at 6 months, and essentially complete at 12 - 18, when it runs out of fuel for the Maillard reaction. Because this miso has so little salt, once you are satisfied with the flavor and decide to harvest it, refrigerate what you can use within a month and freeze the rest. Soy Sauce This is another Noma recipe. We didn’t actually go over brewing soy sauce at the workshop! Yield: 2L 600 g dried yellow peas 600 g wheat berries 1.9 kg water 365 g noniodized salt Koji tane or kojikin Cook the peas as with miso, but only until you can crush a pea with light pressure, not until mushy. Toast the wheat in a 170 C/340 F oven on a baking sheet for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes, until very dark — nearly burned looking. Drain the beans and let them and the grain cool to room temp. Crack the wheat with a food processor (or if you’re a bit nuts, manually with a mortar and pestle). You want to crack the kernels, not make flour. Measure out 1.125 kg of cooked peas and mix with the cracked wheat. Now we will inoculate this mix in the same manner as we made koji rice in my previous post. Line your incubation tray with a clean, damp tea towel and spread the pea-wheat mix gently over it. Do not compress this medium or the koji’s growth will be inhibited. If using kojikin, follow the procedure for inoculating with cut koji spores. If using kojitane, use a flour sifter to distribute the spores and continue with the folding process. Cover with a lightly damp towel and put your tray in a 77 F ferment chamber. This ferment should be cooler than the rice version — do not allow the chamber to go higher than 86 F. After the first 24 hours, follow the mixing process and furrow the wheatpeas. Return to incubator and increase the heat to 84 F. At 48 hours, you may see a color change depending on the type of koji you’ve used. Remove your koji. Make a brine with 950 mL water and the salt. Crumble the koji into your fermentation container and add the warm brine (no hotter than 95 F) and stir well. This is your moromi! Weight the whole thing, vessel and all, and record the weight. Cover the surface of the moromi with a piece of plastic wrap and then cover the vessel with a loose lid or a towel rubber banded on. Let ferment in a slightly cooler than room temp spot and stir once a day for two weeks. Then stir once a week. This oxygenates the mix and prevents mold and acetobacters from being able to grow on the surface. Skim off anything that tries to grow there. In 4 months, it’s time to harvest your pea sauce. Weigh the whole vessel again. Subtract the new value from the original weight. Add the difference in (cold) water back in. Using a press or filter bag, strain the liquid and squeeze as much out of the solids as you can. Work in batches if necessary. Strain the liquid through a fine filter or layered cheesecloth to remove fine sediment. Jar it up and refrigerate; this will keep for months. You can reserve some of your pea sauce to help start your next batch! Errata There are way more uses for koji than I’ve covered here. Bon Appetit has a good video on dry aging with koji. People are making soups, sauces, and salad dressings with shiokoji. You can incorporate koji into desserts, breadings, and even fried chicken marinades. Nicco and Rich incorporated ricotta and koji, aged it three months, and ended up with a hard cheese similar to Parmesan. You can dehydrate and powder koji to make koji salt, which you can mix in with butter for an incredible spread on bread. I’ve seen bread made with koji, too. You can also go beyond inoculating rice. Seeds, nuts, and whole grains are all fair game. There are koji made with inoculated bread! Preparing a medium with intact bran and germ and a higher proportion of fats requires extra steps. You need to crack whole grains and defat some seeds and nuts to ensure that they’re not overwhelmed by oxidized fats. I mentioned kojitane above as well. Confusingly, this term refers to both koji spores and dried grains that are covered in spores. Koji rice is what you would use to brew sake, awamori, and the bases for various distilled liquors. Homebrewing alcohol is beyond the purview of this post, but I imagine that the homebrewing megathread has posters experimenting with various Japanese rice liquors. Koji is not the traditional starter for makgeolli, Korean traditional rice beer, but people do use koji (instead of nuruk, the traditional starter culture) while following the rest of the procedures. Aspergillus oryzae is present in nuruk, but the culture is a complex community of microbes rather than an isolated culture. I think that’s all I’ve got right now!
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Jan 17, 2019 18:08
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Thanks this is very neat! It does sound pretty interesting to make some miso. Do the other miso bases work out as well as soy? Like do chickpeas or yellow peas or whatever taste significantly different?
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Jan 19, 2019 05:22
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I've always thought about making miso or soy sauce but it takes so long. Wait a year and a half, find out it sucks, adjust your recipe, wait another year and a half...
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Jan 19, 2019 05:27
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Thanks for the write up on all that it's very interesting and sparking some ideas for projects this year
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Jan 19, 2019 06:10
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Grand Fromage posted:I've always thought about making miso or soy sauce but it takes so long. Wait a year and a half, find out it sucks, adjust your recipe, wait another year and a half... i did this once with eggnog eventually i just realized aging it does nothing and i had wasted three years of my life
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Jan 19, 2019 08:33
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Eeyo posted:Thanks this is very neat! It does sound pretty interesting to make some miso. Do the other miso bases work out as well as soy? Like do chickpeas or yellow peas or whatever taste significantly different? They are pretty different. The koji medium makes a difference too. Plus you can incorporate add ins to change things up as well. One of the more interesting misos I tried was made with peanuts. Grand Fromage posted:I've always thought about making miso or soy sauce but it takes so long. Wait a year and a half, find out it sucks, adjust your recipe, wait another year and a half... If it sucks at 3 months, it’ll probably suck at 6 and 12. The lighter salt recipes Noma does seem to mature a bit faster than the traditional versions. Probably less inhibited by salt. They are also holding their batches at around 86 F to help the enzymes work. Personally I’m just going along at room temp and we will see in March. If you’ve got the space and a jar, I say go for it. Way less troublesome than nuka!
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Jan 19, 2019 15:12
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