Saturday, June 18, 2011

Homemade Shio-koji (salt-marinated rice koji)


I've been so fascinated by the power of kome koji (or "rice koji"; malted rice with koji mold). My passion for rice koji is growing bigger and bigger. With rice koji, I make my own miso, and just lately, I made my first makkoli (rice wine), and this time, I made Shio-koji. It's basically a simple salt-fermented rice koji, which can be used for a wide variety of dishes for marinade, seasoning, etc.

It's very simple to make Shio-koji. You just need some patience to wait for it to be ready to use.


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Only 3 ingredients are required. 400 grams dry rice koji, 120 grams sea salt, and 400 ml water (room temperature).


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Just like making homemade miso, first, pressed rice koji was broken into grains by hand.


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Salt was added and mixed by hand throughly.


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Water was added and stirred. The mixture was transferred to a container.


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You can use a regular plastic container, but make sure it's only loosely covered (so that the mixture won't explode during fermentation). Let the mixture ferment at a room temperature for 7-10 days (it's different from alcoholic fermentation, so no alcohol would be produced). Meanwhile, you can stir the mixture once a day. In the first few days, you might think the mixture is not wet enough, but as the grains start to break down, it will become more moist.


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Here's the finished Shio-koji after 10 days! It's so beautifully soft and smooth. The aroma has the nice "fermented" koji smell. I tasted it just as is, and it was so unique and so fantastic! It was, of course, salty, and also had the sweet sake-like flavor. With the magic of koji mold, the grains were almost completely dissolved into smooth paste.

You can keep the finished Shio-koji (in a tightly sealed container) in refrigerator for a few months. I'm going to make many different things with it and want to post pictures in t his blog.