Messing around with koji I
Winter charcuterie board with ferments
Vegan charcuterie board with koji
I found myself immersed in the Koji Alchemy book for hours, just reading about those enzymes breaking up the starches. Thrilling stuff, keeping you on your toes all the way.
Not only that, but of course, like others before me probably, I’m imagining how to turn every box, jar and container around me into a fermenting device. Not that my house isn’t already a ferments lab with probably so many natural yeasts and bacteria floating around that my house plants could start to spontaneously ferment at any moment. But I mean my heart just skips a beat when I get to the part of dry-aging and curing veggies with koji spores, aka vegan charcuterie. And obviously, since it can be done with expensive equipment and in a professional kitchen, I am going to try the “at home” version, with little to no equipment, in a kitchen where I have to cook every day. (Note to self: kitchen lab is the dream).
cured veggies ready for inoculation with koji
First step, steam the veggies and let them dry a little. I used beets, carots and white turnip. Then I salted them at 2% of their weight and covered in a spice mix with smoked pimenton, cloves, cinnamon, chili flakes, pepper. Any spice mix will do, next time I’ll vary for more flavour variations. I don’t have a smoker right now so I didn’t smoke them but this is when it can be done. (Now I’m imagining a kitchen lab with a smoking room *sigh*)
Second step let them cure in the fridge, wrapped, for about a week. In my case it was exactly a week
Third step inoculate with koji spores mixed with rice flour until well covered. I let the koji do its magic for about 48h in a small oven set to a very low temp, 20-30*C. Afterwards, I dehidrated the veggies covered in fluffy mold, in the same oven, at about 40*C, for another two days, until they looked at about 60% or so of their volume.
dehydrated and fermented with koji spores
And now for the taste. Well taste and smell. The beet still has a distinctive beet smell, but they all have this yeasty flowery fragrance. In their last hours dehydrating I couldn’t stop opening the oven and taking in the smell, but maybe that is just my brain having been programmed to love the yeast smell and taste.
charcuterie board with koji fermented veggies
As for tasting, raw, as in charcuterie board, is one way to go and they all tasted great. The beets were still pretty juicy, but more concentrated and with a salty umami taste. I think next batch I’ll leave tem to dehydrate more or I will try cutting them in four maybe. The carrots had a sweet, spicy taste that benefited the most from the spice mix I cured them in. Mostly freshly ground pepper and a touch of cinnamon I think did the trick in their case. As a detail I think cutting them thicker also helps with tasting more nuances.
And now, the star of the show, who would have thought, the turnip. As a note to self for the next batch, also let them dehydrate a bit more. But the taste was incredible. Even when roasted, turnip has a slight stinky cheese note to it, and in this case that note was amplyfied by the curing, the fermenting, the dehydration. Since the rind is very similar to a brie rind my mind immediately went there, but I think that doesn’t do it justice. It’s soooo good on its own, creamy, savoury, just a bit spicy. I just loved it raw and panfried. Which brings me to the next part of the tasting process: enhancing the flavour. I did sacrifice the benefits of living ferments in this case but I had to try it. And try I did. And it was quite a spectacular treat, if I may say so myself, since it’s my own food.
I made bruschettas with slowly caramelized onions, the panfried cured veggies, pistacchio and herbs on top of toasted spelt bread.
