A while ago I managed to find a webshop selling koji spores and figured 'hell, why not?'.
I've seeded some rice successfully and made 2 batches of miso - one with chickpeas and another with plain old beans. Loved the results.
Then I was inspired by the veggie charcuterie I've seen Sandor Katz's book (I think it was there?) and thought I could maybe use it to make fake dry-sausages out of slabs of cooked seitan seeded with the koji spores. Success was limited since I did not get a full cover on the bits before the thing started sporulating, so I placed it in a dehydrator. Nevertheless, it was a fairly tasty addition to stir-fries, albeit a bit tough.
Anybody ever done funky things with koji? Looking for some weird new ideas to try out.
I have not played with Koji, but I am Curious about it. Can you expand more on the seitan sausages with it, was it supposed to work in a similar fashion to cured sausages? or break it down to soften it up? Just make a fun and interesting texture/flavour? Also thank you I now have another book to look into!
Yeah, I was hoping for something like cured lean sausages.
In my mind, the mold would grow hyphae through the slabs of seitan and would secrete enzymes to give a softer texture. While it did secrete enzymes and do its magic on the surface - it brought out some very nice flavours, I felt the middle was a bit lacking and leathery in consistence. If I repeat the experiment I'll probably try thinner strips of seitan (these were about 2.5 cm/1 inch over 1 cm/0.4 inches) and a lower incubation temperature. At the time it was a bit cold and I incubated in a dehydrator (in a covered vessel with adequate moisture inside) at 30C. Conditions may not have been very friendly, hence the sporulation.
Maybe I'll give it a small flour coating as well (like they do with soybeans for soy sauce?) and perhaps poke some holes in the cooked slabs with a toothpick to increase surface area and oxygenation.
is your seitan densly structured? The koji needs some wiggleroom to grow.
It was as dense as I could get it, just got the blob after obtaining it by making dough and taking the starch out under cold water. Tried to braid it with some spices but didn't really work as intended so I gave up and just cooked the loaf then chopped it. Will probably poke holes next time.
Structure wise I've had results by not kneading the dough, just letting the autolyse handle the gluten formation. It comes out more flakey. I assume the koji will reach deeper inside that way.
Poking holes though is a tried and true tactic!