Homemade Miso
I'll give a quick overview of the process, but for those who want to pursue more deeply, I strongly recommend "Wild Fermentation" by Sandor Katz. Gotta love living foods. Miso can be made with any kind of bean, so experiment and get crazy, they all have unique and delicious tastes (though soy is the traditional medium)
First, you will need kogi, which are grains of rice innoculated with the fungus that makes miso so tasty (they also turn rice or any grain into a super sweet delicacy). You'll also need a big container, not metal (preferably a large crock, but food grade 1-5 gal buckets work too), a lid that fits snugly inside the container and some kind of heavy weight to keep pressure on the lid (a clean, sterilized stone works well). Also, some sort of cloth or plastic to keep flies and dust out.
K, heres the recipe:
Soak 4 pounds of beans overnight, then cook until soft without burning them.
Drain beans and save liquid.
Take 2 cups bean liquid and completely dissolve 1/2 cup salt (either pickling salt or preferably unrefined seasalt) to make strong brine. Set aside to cool.
Mash beans (you can use a food processor, but lumpy miso is good too, and makes nice texture for soup).
When brine is cool enough to comfortably touch, take 1 cup out and mash 2 tablespoons mature (and unpasteurized) miso into it. Miso has more than just the kogi organisms going to work, and this ensures a balanced microflora. Return this to the rest of the brine and add the kogi and mix well.
Now you mix everything together and make sure it is evenly mixed. If it is too thick as more bean cooking liquid (should be about same consistency as store bought miso, well, except for the chunkiness). This is the miso, but now you have to store it properly for the magic to happen.
First, salt the bottom and sides of your bucket or crock (this makes sure the outer edges are extra salty to prevent unwanted contaminants). Just dip a wet finger in your salt and rub it around the container.
Pack the miso in tightly, leaving no air pockets. Smooth top and cover with a nice thick layer of salt (you discard the very top anyway, so don't be shy).
Cover with your lid, which is basically whatever you can find that is closest to the inner diameter of the fermentation vessel. Then weight it down with something heavy (scrub and boil a big stone, or whatever you have around). The idea is to keep all the solids safely immersed in the protective brine.
Then cover with cloth or plastic to keep flies and dust out, and wait a year. If you are going to get more than one batch at a time going, you should definitely label them.
You generally want to wait at least a year (or one summer I should say) but miso, like some wines, only improves with age, so the longer you wait the better.
Just to be forewarned, when you first open a crock that has been fermenting for a couple years, the top layer might look pretty disgusting. This is a normal result of contact with the air. Just discard the top, and everything under will still be fine. You can dig out the whole thing and pack it into (extremely clean) glass jars, but put a layer of wax paper between the cap and jar, as miso corrodes metal. You have to open them periodically to release pressure though, or they will explode.
I'll get the post on Kim Chee up soon.
seeker of truth
follow no path
all paths lead where
truth is here
E.E. Cummings
As far as the cooking goes, that is primarily for cats or smaller animals that have difficulty chewing raw meat. Most of the time the meat comes in large portions making it difficult for smaller or challenged animals to handle it. But, when we have time enough we do cut up the raw for them. Cooking it makes the process easy and less time consuming, and is still a far better alternative to processed food especially when adding supplements to it.
Good day fellow culinary artists!
