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- Oct 5, 2008
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- Gore (surprise!)
My wife gave me a book on koji cooking, along with a bag of koji rice and a bag of spores. Koji is a mold that is the basis for a lot of Japanese. It's used in fermenting, like making sake and plays a role in other fermenting processes in other Asian countries. We were intrigued by the aging process of vegetables and meats and decided to give it a shot. There have been a few threads about coating steaks with ground koji-infused rice and leaving it the fridge to dry age for a couple days. They suggest this is a rapid way to get a dry-aged steak. Our question was how do the spores do anything in the refrigerator, when ideal growing temps are around 80-90*? We figured we'd do an experiment and use the refrigerator method with a couple steaks (still in the fridge downstairs) and we'd try a different recipe with another couple.
The recipe book was ambiguous in parts, but we managed. We coated the steaks in a mixture of salt and sugar (to taste -- how do we know what to taste means in this case). The sugar is supposed to provide food for the spores and the salt is supposed to provide some preservative properties and flavor the meat. Although the amount of salt they suggested was more than I would normally salt a steak that size, it turned out to be not nearly enough and I should've seasoned again before cooking, but I didn't know that at the time and additional seasoning before cooking was not suggested. The next step was to coat the steaks in a mixture of cornstarch and koji spores and place in a warm humid place. We filled our turkey roaster with a bit of water and placed the steaks on a grate above the water, covered, and then put the whole thing in the oven set to 90* for two days. This is what they looked like:
They were already warm, so did not need much to cook. I cooked one on the grill and the other was pan-fried on the stove. This was the next issue with the book instructions. It said these cook differently, that the exterior will burn and I should use a low heat. The grill was set at 350*, which I consider low, but I didn't get anywhere near the action I was expecting. I should have cooked these just as I normally would have. It also suggested not rinsing the meat beforehand as the crust is a nice feature. No opinion on this as we cooked both with the crust.
The final part was the taste test. Remember these steaks were raw, and left out for 2 days at 90* before a relatively quick cook. They didn't smell bad. They smelled sweet and a bit floral, similar to Korean Makgeolli or rice wine.
That is a picture of the pan-fried steak. You can see the crust on it. The grilled steak tasted quite different. Flavor was better grilled, but texture was better for the pan-fried. I'd been reading that these would be reminiscent of a dry-aged steak. Well, it didn't taste anything like any dry-aged steak either of us have had. Neither of us found them to be beefy at all and had a difficult time trying to describe them. We found them quite disappointing because we were expecting a beef flavor that was not there. Taste was a tiny bit like charcuterie, but like no charcuterie we ever had before, and there was the floral flavor similar to rice wine. It was definitely different and something to try, but can't really say we liked them. Didn't die though. :thumb:
The recipe book was ambiguous in parts, but we managed. We coated the steaks in a mixture of salt and sugar (to taste -- how do we know what to taste means in this case). The sugar is supposed to provide food for the spores and the salt is supposed to provide some preservative properties and flavor the meat. Although the amount of salt they suggested was more than I would normally salt a steak that size, it turned out to be not nearly enough and I should've seasoned again before cooking, but I didn't know that at the time and additional seasoning before cooking was not suggested. The next step was to coat the steaks in a mixture of cornstarch and koji spores and place in a warm humid place. We filled our turkey roaster with a bit of water and placed the steaks on a grate above the water, covered, and then put the whole thing in the oven set to 90* for two days. This is what they looked like:
They were already warm, so did not need much to cook. I cooked one on the grill and the other was pan-fried on the stove. This was the next issue with the book instructions. It said these cook differently, that the exterior will burn and I should use a low heat. The grill was set at 350*, which I consider low, but I didn't get anywhere near the action I was expecting. I should have cooked these just as I normally would have. It also suggested not rinsing the meat beforehand as the crust is a nice feature. No opinion on this as we cooked both with the crust.
The final part was the taste test. Remember these steaks were raw, and left out for 2 days at 90* before a relatively quick cook. They didn't smell bad. They smelled sweet and a bit floral, similar to Korean Makgeolli or rice wine.
That is a picture of the pan-fried steak. You can see the crust on it. The grilled steak tasted quite different. Flavor was better grilled, but texture was better for the pan-fried. I'd been reading that these would be reminiscent of a dry-aged steak. Well, it didn't taste anything like any dry-aged steak either of us have had. Neither of us found them to be beefy at all and had a difficult time trying to describe them. We found them quite disappointing because we were expecting a beef flavor that was not there. Taste was a tiny bit like charcuterie, but like no charcuterie we ever had before, and there was the floral flavor similar to rice wine. It was definitely different and something to try, but can't really say we liked them. Didn't die though. :thumb:
