{"id":1346,"date":"2021-07-14T10:52:33","date_gmt":"2021-07-14T10:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/todelli.com\/content\/?p=1346"},"modified":"2021-08-04T13:44:25","modified_gmt":"2021-08-04T13:44:25","slug":"koji-makes-anything-taste-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/todelli.com\/content\/koji-makes-anything-taste-better\/","title":{"rendered":"How to make Shio Koji \u2013 the Fermented Rice Marinade for poultry, meat and fish"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chef’s notebook:<\/strong>
\n“Make Shio Koji to marinate poultry, meat, fish or use it\u00a0to make bread”<\/p>\n

\"Marinated<\/a><\/p>\n

Koji Makes Anything Taste Better & Shio Koji is the secret Fermented Rice Marinade that Chefs choose to marinate poultry, meat, and seafood. As with other kin-derived ingredients like soy sauce and miso, shio koji lends savory depth to foods it comes into contact with, thanks to protease enzymes that break down proteins into amino acids, which we perceive as umami.<\/p>\n

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Jackie Bailey from Umami Chef<\/a> is the first approved koji maker in the UK and her White Rice Koji ingredient<\/a> is perfect for making Shio Koji.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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What is Koji?<\/h3>\n

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The traditional definition of koji is a specific ancient mold (aspergillus oryzae) inoculated cooked grain (typically rice or barley) and\/or soybean that\u2019s used as a starter for Japanese ferments like shoyu, miso, sake, and mirin.<\/p>\n

Koji, or dried rice grains<\/a> cultured with aspergillus oryzae, make any and all foods taste like hyper-version of themselves.<\/strong>\u00a0Imagine\u00a0you could level up\u00a0the\u00a0taste\u00a0of every dish you make, naturally. That’s exactly what filamentous fungus koji does: As spores grow (a friendly, white, fluffy mold), they break sugars and proteins down into their very basic forms, making them more readily available to our tongues.<\/p>\n

What does this mean? Steaks casually seasoned with the stuff will sport an unprecedented savoriness; prosciutto will be completely cured in a matter of months not years; and bread becomes intoxicatingly yeasty \u2014 all without the addition of salt, fat, sugar, or time.<\/p>\n

How to make\u00a0Shio Koji<\/h3>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

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The marinade is\u00a0made by fermenting a mixture of grain koji (cooked grain, most commonly rice, that has been inoculated with\u00a0Aspergillus Oryzae<\/em>\u00a0and then dried), salt, and water to create a porridge-textured product with a sweet, funky aroma.<\/p>\n

Once you have some white rice koji<\/a> (we use the one from\u00a0Jackie Bailey<\/a>\u00a0and Umami Chef:\u00a0the first approved koji maker in the UK ) the process for turning it into shio koji couldn’t be simpler, but note that it does take\u00a0a week to ferment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"White<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Steps for making Shio Koji<\/h3>\n