Koji

Cooking Discussions Cooking, Cookbooks, Ingredients
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I just read this interesting piece about koji and wondered whether anyone has used it at home.

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I have both shio koji and tamari koji in my fridge. But I am not doing anything as creative as the ideas in the article. Mainly I use as marinades for fish or meat or as an umami addition to soups and sauces. The pickled onions pictured appeal to me.

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Thanks! I’d like to try doing something with it. Shio koji looks pretty easy to make.

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I’m a big fan of koji, though I mostly make and use shio and shoyu koji. I’m curious about making miso from e.g. peas and chickpeas and cacao.

This recipe for koji stock looks pretty good, I’ve enjoyed recipes from bunburyist before.

I use both for marinades: chicken, salmon, beef, pork. Shio is lighter, shoyu is stronger.

When cooking with either as a marinade, make sure to scrape off any koji rice pieces as the marinades know that it will brown quite quickly due to carbohydrates in the koji rice. It’s easy to burn but also takes smokey notes (e.g. on the grill) really well. YMMV.

I add shio koji to sauces, dips, and dressings for an extra malty+umami layer. It goes especially well with citrus flavors.

There’s a great book by Rich Shih and Jeremy Umanksy called Koji Alchemy, which does a deep dive into a huge number of different applications of koji (e.g. miso made from ham, meat and veggies curing, amino pastes, bread, and more). The photos are beautiful, too – worth the money or the trip to the library.

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Thank you so much! Great info.

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Great info, thanks.

The link in the SE article to the company selling the rice koji says it (the rice itself) shouldn’t be consumed raw.

The SE article and you mention use in dressings - so is it ok to use the fermented product raw? Or when used in a dressing, should I pre-cook it?

Thanks for any advice, and thanks to @small_h for posting this article. I’m ordering a tub of the innoculated rice today.

Edit - turns out I’m ordering a bag of the rice from Amazon insted of a tub from ChefShop. The latter has the best price/mass that I’ve seen, but the cheapest shipping they offer was the same cost as the product.

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Same here. I have shio koji at home from a local Japanese market, and I’ve added it into marinades here and there (primarily with meat). I’m going to have to experiment more with sauces!

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i’m a big fan of amazaki (a sweet rice drink made with koji), but after reading how to make it at home, i’ll keep buying it premade for now.

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I have no problems adding a splash of shio or shoyu koji to uncooked things, and I’ve seen recipes that call for one of the two added to uncooked dips/spreads (e.g. shio or shoyu koji mixed into mayo, ideally with some lemon or lime rind).

However, I don’t know the food safety. My guess is that it’s fine after sitting in a high salt brine for a week or two.

I probably wouldn’t eat straight up Koji rice or Koji barley before adding brine or soy sauce, but mostly because it doesn’t appeal to me. YMMV, I am not a food safety or medical professional making health claims, etc.

Unrelated to food safety, I’ve seen some examples of people using an (immersion) blender to liquify the whole mixture into a smooth paste. It’s nice for saturating surfaces with marinades and matching creamy textures, but unblended is good, too. Try both!

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That all makes perfect sense. Thank you. No worries about safety caveats, I’m responsible for my own actions!

The SE article also mentioned pureeing before using as a marinade, depending on the use.

I’m pretty excited to get some of the inoculated rice and fermenting it. I’ve done steaks that I pre-salted, then about 2 hours before cooking, I painted them with fish sauce. My guests swore the steaks tasted like they’d been dry aged, which I hadn’t done. I think marinading with the shio koji might do similar flavors.

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