The Essential Book of Fermentation (44 page)

Makes about 1½ cups

½ cup
miso

½ cup plain
yogurt

3 tablespoons tamari

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1 pound beef steak

Mix the miso, yogurt, tamari, and garlic thoroughly in a bowl, then pour the mixture into a zip-top plastic freezer bag. Add the steak. Close the bag to remove air and marinate for 6 to 8 hours in the fridge (place the bag in the fridge before going to work and it will be ready by dinnertime); remove the beef from the marinade and discard the marinade before cooking. Allow the steak to come to room temperature before grilling.

Miso-Seasoned Butter

This butter can be used to enliven mac and cheese, to smear on Italian bread, to melt over hot pasta, to enhance hot vegetables, and to melt into hot baked potatoes. Use your kitchen creativity to find other uses.

Makes about ¾ cup

¼ cup
miso

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 cloves garlic, mashed through a garlic press

In a bowl, stir all the ingredients together until thoroughly mixed. Place the bowl in a plastic bag, twist the tie shut, and store in the fridge for up to 1 week.

Homemade Amazake

Amazake is a traditional Japanese fermented food, simple to make, and when made by you at home, free of any chemicals, preservatives, or other unwanted substances. It also uses koji rice to inoculate brown rice with
Aspergillus oryzae.
The fungus colonizes the rice grains, turning the starches to sweet sugars, and so amazake is used as a hot drink and also as a dessert, snack, sweetener, infant food, and salad dressing, and with pureed fruits as a smoothie. The drink is still served at rituals and traditional celebrations in Japan. It helps to have a food thermometer when making amazake, as temperatures must be well controlled. It’s recommended you make this when you’ll be at home all day.

Makes 8 to 9 cups of amazake base

3 cups short-grain brown rice

1½ cups dry brown koji rice

1.
Place the brown rice (not the koji rice), in a large saucepan with 6 cups of plain water (no salt) and bring to a full boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook for 60 minutes. Stir it up thoroughly and transfer it to a Pyrex or ceramic bowl. Allow it to cool to warm (110ºF).

2.
Add the dry brown koji rice to the cooked rice and stir it in completely. The bowl should be slightly less than full. The mixture will be thick but will become thinner as it ferments. Cover the bowl with a plate to conserve the heat.

3.
Place the bowl in a warm place for 5 to 8 hours. The temperature should remain at about 110ºF. You can set it in a warm oven, or place it on the stove over a large pan of water kept on low heat—like a double boiler. But monitor the temperature of the koji frequently. It should not be higher than about 115ºF.

4.
Stir the rice mixture with a wooden spoon several times during the fermentation, checking the temperature each time. Taste it after 5 hours. If you like the sweetness, you can stop the fermentation there. If you want it a little sweeter, let it continue for the full 8 hours. It should be sweet and the rice grains soft.

5.
Stop the fermentation by simmering the amazake over a flame or electric burner for 15 minutes. Simmer—don’t scorch. This is now your amazake base, which you can store in a closed jar in the fridge.

To make an amazake drink

Mix 1 part amazake base with 1½ parts water in a saucepan. Bring just to a boil. Pour into heated cups, and top each cup with a pinch of grated fresh ginger.

Other uses for amazake

As a sweetener, substitute 3½ tablespoons amazake for 1 tablespoon honey or 2 tablespoons sugar. Use in breads, cakes, pancakes, waffles, or muffins. It will augment the leavening, add moistness, and sweeten the bread or pastries.

Tempeh

On the island of Java in Indonesia, two indigenous species of mold—
Rhizopus oryzae
and
Rhizopus oligosporus
—are typically found on hibiscus leaves. The Javanese have been using an infusion of hibiscus leaves to ferment soybeans for hundreds of years, producing a food they call tempeh. Unlike most fermentations, these molds, rather than bacteria or yeasts, do the work. The result is a very nutritious food. First of all, tempeh is a complete protein with all the amino acids, thus can substitute for meat in the diet. It has many health-promoting compounds like isoflavones and saponins. The molds also produce natural antibiotic agents. The fiber in the soybeans is left intact by the fermentation and there are benefits for the digestive system from enzymes produced during the ferment.

Making tempeh at home isn’t difficult, but you do need to have the correct starter of one or both of these two healthful molds. Tempeh starter is available through www.culturesforhealth.com and other online sources.

Tempeh’s nutty, mushroomy, umami flavor is good as is, but many cooks like to marinate it. Slice it thinly, and deep-fry until crisp. That’s the way they like it in Indonesia. But you can also stir-fry, bake, or grill it. It’s easy to grate or shred, and when put through a food processor, it acquires the texture of hamburger. Some cooks use it as a hamburger helper, mixing it half and half with ground beef or ground chicken thigh meat. It’s a very versatile food.

Makes 2 cakes, each not quite 1 pound

1 pound dry organic soybeans

5 tablespoons white vinegar

1 teaspoon tempeh starter

1.
Soak the soybeans in a gallon of water overnight. Unless you bought hulled soybeans, you’ll have to remove the hulls. After the soak, squish the beans with your fingers, loosening the hulls so they float free. Make sure the beans split in half as you press them. Pour the water and hulls into a strainer, add fresh water to the pot, and repeat until the hulls are removed. You don’t have to get every last one, but try.

2.
Drain the beans and place them in a cooking pot, covering them with fresh water. Add the vinegar and turn up the heat. Boil the beans for 30 minutes, adding a little more water if some beans become uncovered.

3.
Pour off the water and return the beans to medium heat, stirring to let excess water boil off, until the beans are moist but free of liquid, about 5 minutes. Don’t let them scorch.

4.
Set the beans aside to cool until they are just lukewarm. Sprinkle the beans with the tempeh starter and stir thoroughly. It’s important to work the starter through all the beans so the mold colonizes every part and reduces the opportunity for rogue molds to take hold. Thorough mixing also hastens the fermentation.

5.
Take 2 quart-size zip-top freezer bags and puncture them with a clean ice pick so the holes are half an inch apart in all directions. The mold needs air to breathe.

6.
Divide the inoculated soybeans in half and put each half into a separate bag. The beans should be about 1 inch to 1½ inches thick in their bags.

7.
If you have a gas oven with a pilot light, place the beans in the oven on a baking sheet for 36 to 48 hours. They need warmth, about 85ºF, to ferment properly. If you don’t have a warm gas oven, place them on a baking sheet set on a heating pad at the lowest setting and cover loosely with a dish towel. Use a thermometer to check the temperature, making sure it stays about 85ºF. At the end of the fermentation, the beans should be covered with the mold’s white mycelia—slender white threads interwoven on the surface of the tempeh. Remove the cakes from the bags and store them wrapped in wax paper in the cheese drawer of your fridge.

A Marinade for Tempeh

Cut your homemade tempeh into small cubes or slices and soak them for 2 to 3 hours in this marinade. Then add to stir-fries or mix with steamed vegetables.

Makes about
²
⁄
₃
cup marinade, enough for 1-pound cake of tempeh 2 tablespoons tamari