Home-brew Sake-kasu x Shio-koji x Sun-dry veggies = Umami Souffle

With my sun-dried vegetables and mushrooms, I've been enjoying making souffle-style dish.

Sun-dry vegetables (such as zucchini & asparagus), as well as my usual sun-dry mushrooms are packed with developed umami flavors. The texture becomes much nicer after 1-2 days of sun-bathing.

So, what I came up with was...first, I saute and steam-fry these sun-dried veggies & mushrooms with onion and garlic. Then, I add boiled potatoes and kale.

Once all the vegetables are cooked, I put them in a food processor along with my home-brew sakekasu & shio-koji to puree! Then, the pureed vegetables are mixed with eggs, shredded Gruyere cheese, and some nutmeg.

The mixture is put in a baking dish and cooked in oven for 25-30 minutes at 450F.

My umami-packed vegetable souffle is served with 4:1:1 (Greek yogurt/ shio-koji/ amazake) sauce. Heavenly.

Here's my recipe:

Sun-dried Vegetable Souffle

Ingredients

2 medium-size (about 6 oz) zucchini, sliced and sun-dried for 1 full day

8 oz asparagus, cut and sun-dried for 1 full day

6 oz king oyster mushrooms, sliced and sun-dried for 1 full day

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 oz onion, thinly-sliced

2 cloves garlic, thinly-sliced

2 tablespoons sake

3-4 oz kale, sliced

10 oz potatoes boiled

1 tablespoon shio-koji

2 oz Swiss cheese, grated

3 eggs

a pinch nutmeg

Procedure

1. In a saute pan, saute onion and garlic in olive oil until the onion is soft. Add zucchini, asparagus, mushrooms, and stir. Add sake and cover. Let them steam-fry for 3-4 minutes.

2. Uncover and add kale and cooked potatoes. Cover again and steam-fry until kale is cooked through. *Add some water if necessary.

3. Once the moisture is reduced down to almost nothing, turn off the heat. Let them cool down for 5-10 minutes.

4. Transfer the cooked vegetables to a food processor and puree.

5. In a large bowl, whisk eggs and add a pinch of nutmeg. Add the pureed mixture and stir well. Add the cheese and stir again.

6. Transfer the mixture to a large-enough baking dish and cook in the 450F oven for 25-30 minutes or until it's done.

7. Serve with "4:1:1" sauce (mentioned above), or your choice of accompaniment(s).

Happy koji life.

Donabe hot pot...Sake-kasu Sundubu Jjigae

On a chilly night, I felt like having some hearty spicy hot pot dish. So, I came up with this Korean-style sake-kasu soup.

I made the broth with dashi-stock, kochujang, miso, ground red chili, sake, ginger, garlic, sugar, and sake-kasu (sake lees). The ingredients cooked in the broth were sauteed kurobuta bacon, kabocha, shiitake and tofu. Bacon was actually the key ingredient to deepen the flavor of this dish. I used kurobuta bacon, which I got from Marukai in Gardena. It's really nice. I sauteed the bacon before hand and drained the fat before adding to the broth, so it's less greasier than using fresh pork belly. But, because it's cured meat, with just a small amount, it gave the very nice layer of flavor to the dish.

Everything was cooked in one pot. I used my light-body classic-style donabe, "Yu-Kizeto" for this dish.

In about 10 minutes, the dish was ready. A couple of eggs were dropped in the soup right before turning off to make very soft poached eggs in it.

The dish was served with thinly sliced scallion and cilantro. The broth was so tasty and gorgeous. Sake-kasu truly added the rich and warm taste to the dish. I enjoyed the soup also by dipping donabe-cooked rice in it. The egg was so nicely runny! Here's my recipe.

Sake-kasu Sundubu Jjigae

Ingredients (for 2 hearty servings)

(seasoning paste)

1 tablespoon kochujang (Korean hot bean paste)

2 tablespoons miso

2 oz sake-kasu

1 tablespoon ground red chili (use less if you prefer it to be less hot)

2 tablespoons sake

1 clove garlic, grated

1 tablespoon grated ginger

1 teaspoon raw brown sugar

4 oz bacon, cut into 1" wide pieces

3 cups dashi stock

1 green part of negi (Japanese green onion)

1/2 to 1 tablespoon light-color soy sauce ("usukuchi shoyu")

1/8 to 1/6 medium-size kabocha, cut into small pieces

3-4 shiitake mushrooms, sliced

8-10 oz soft tofu, cut into cubes

1 teaspoon sesame oil

2 eggs

(condiments)

some thinly-sliced scallion

some lemon wedges

some cilantro

Procedure

1. Combine the ingredients for the "seasoning paste" in a food processor. Pulse until they become a smooth paste. Set aside.

2. Saute the bacon for a few minutes. Transfer the cooked bacon to a plate with papertowel on it. Let the papertowel soak the excess grease from the bacon. Set aside.

3. Combine the seasoning paste, dashi stock and green part of negi in donabe. Add the bacon, kabocha, and shiitake. Bring to a boil and reduce to simmer. Simmer until everything is cooked through. Remove the negi and discard.

4. Add tofu and continue to simmer until tofu is hot. Drizzle the sesame oil.

5. Add the eggs carefully in the center so that the yolks won't break. Simmer for a minute or longer if you like it more cooked.

6. Serve into individual bowls with the condiments.

Nice side dish salad...roasted cauliflower, red cabbage, etc. were tossed in warm vinaigrette which is made from our home-grown orange and other ingredients.

Happy donabe life.

Kabocha and Sake-kasu Cheese Salad

Ginjo (soft-style) sake-kasu (sake lees) goes so well with cheese. I'm serious. When I need a snack, I often make myself a small canapé with a simple mixture of sake-kasu and brie cheese. The flavor combination of both fermented products is so unique and so wonderful. I highly recommend you try it, too.

This “sake-kasu cheese” is also great in a salad. I roasted pumpkin and made a salad dish with the sake-kasu cheese. Here’s my recipe.

Kabocha and Sake-kasu Cheese Salad

Ingredients
½ medium-size kabocha squash, peeled and cut into small pieces (about 1/3” thick)
some olive oil
salt and pepper
2-3 tablespoons walnuts, roasted and broken into smaller pieces
2 oz ripe brie cheese
2 tablespoons Ginjo (soft-style) sake-kasu
½ pound sliced shiitake mushrooms, sautéed in olive oil

(Vinaigrette)
1 shallot, thinly-sliced
1 clove garlic, thinly-sliced
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons dry currant
salt and pepper to taste

some black currant balsamic vinegar (optional)

Procedure
1. Toss the kabocha in some olive oil, and season with salt and pepper.
2. Spread the seasoned kabocha in a baking sheet and roast in the 450F oven for 15-20 minutes or until it’s tender.
3. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, break the brie into smaller pieces by hand. Add the sake-kasu and mix by a spoon. Set aside.
4. To make the vinaigrette, sauté the shallot and garlic in 1 tablespoon olive oil in a pan.
5. Once the shallot is very soft, add the lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, and currant.
6. Bring to simmer and turn off the heat. Add the rest of the olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.
7. In a large bowl, combine he roasted kabocha, sake-kasu brie cheese, walnuts, sautéed shiitake mushrooms, and vinaigrette. It’s good to assemble right when the kabocha is roasted and still hot.

Sake-kasu combo..."Kabocha & Sake-kasu cheese salad", and "Sake-kasu root vegetables gratin".

Sake-kasu dessert...Honey Sake-kasu Ice Cream

This is my new favorite. It’s an ice cream with sake-kasu (sake lees)! I use soft-type Ginjo sake-kasu for this for the pure sake-ey flavor, instead of hard-press sake kasu. This ice cream is so simple to make, and the flavor is unbelievably rich with the umami from Ginjo sake-kasu. Here’s my recipe.

Honey Sake-kasu Ice Cream

Ingredients
2 cups milk
1 cup heavy cream
5 fl.oz honey
1/3 cup Ginjo (soft) sake-kasu
2 eggs
1 teaspoon ginger powder

Procedure
1. Combine the milk, cream, and honey in a pot. Heat until almost simmering over medium-low heat.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the sake-kasu, eggs, and ginger powder.
3. Drizzle in the heated liquid in the bowl a little amount at a time and whisk each time.
4. Transfer back the mixture to the pot and heat again over low heat until almost simmering. Stir constantly.
5. Remove from the heat and cool down. Keep it in the refrigerator and chill completely.
6. Once the mixture is chilled, use the ice cream machine to make it into ice cream.

So creamy and so nice...it's like eating sake.

Shojin Sake-kasu Root Vegetables Gratin

Since I love both root vegetables and sake-kasu (sake lees), I created a dish using both ingredients. I made sake-kasu gratin sauce, by mixing sake-kasu, tofu, etc. (so it's naturally non-dairy), and baked with root vegetables. The dish was sensational!


Making the sauce is super easy. You only assemble all the ingredients on a food processor. They are sake-kasu, tofu, saikyo-miso (sweet white miso), salt, yuzu rind, kuzuko (arrowroot powder). As I blended them in the food processor, I added soymilk to make the mixture creamy and smooth.

Rot vegetables and mushrooms were cooked in a pan until tender. They are gobo (burdock root), lotus root, Okinawa purple yam, and eryingi (king oyster) mushrooms.

The ingredients were assembled and baked in the 450F oven for about 25 minutes. Here’s the non-vegan version with a lot of Gruyere cheese on top. Also, instead of purple yam, I used sato-imo (taro...which also great in this dish). So gooey and nice.

This is the lighter less cheese version. Also very nice.

And, voila, here is the complete shojin (Buddhist-style vegan) version, with no cheese (or garlic - because we don't use garlic in shojin cooking). The surface looks almost like baked soufflé. The inside is so creamy and packed with umami flavors from sake, miso, etc. The vegetables were so hearty and tasty. Honestly, I didn't miss the cheese in this dish at all. The flavor was so pure. So, this is my favorite version. WOW.

Here’s my recipe:

Sake-kasu Root Vegetables Gratin

Ingredients
(sauce)
2 oz sake-kasu (hard paste)
¼ cup saikyo miso (sweet white miso)
10-12 oz medium-hard tofu, drained
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon yuzu rind
1 tablespoon each kuzuko (arrowroot powder) and water, combined
1-1.5C pure soymilk (I like very rich kind from Meiji Tofu)

7-8 oz gobo (burdock root), cut into small pieces, soaked in water for 15 minutes and drained
7-8 oz lotus root, peeled and sliced into 1/3” discs and quartered, soaked in water for 15 minutes and drained
7-8 oz Okinawa purple yam, peeled and sliced into 1/3” disks, soaked in water drain when ready to use
5-6 oz eryingi mushrooms, cut into small pieces
2 cloves garlic, thinly-sliced (you can omit this if you want to make it strict “shojin” style)
some olive oil
salt and pepper
some cheese (you can omit this if you want to make it vegan/ shojin style)

Procedure
1. In a food processor, combine the ingredients for the sauce, except for the soy milk. Puree the ingredients.
2. Add 1 cup soymilk and continue to puree. Add more soymilk if necessary. Set aside.
3. Sauté the burdock root and lotus root in some olive oil in a pan until they are lightly browned over medium-high heat.
4. Add about ½ cup water and cover. Turn down the heat to medium, and cook until the vegetables are crisp-tender.
5. Add the yam and a little more water if necessary. Cover again and cook until the yam is tender and the water is evaporated (about 5 minutes).
6. Add the mushrooms and garlic (optional) and sauté until the mushrooms are cooked through. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from the heat.
7. In a large enough baking dish, drizzle some olive oil to coat the inner bottom. Spread the cooked vegetables and pour the sauce over them. Spread some shredded Gruyere cheese on the surface if you like.
8. Bake in the 450F oven for about 25 minutes or until the surface is nicely browned.

Let’s eat more sake-kasu

This year, my passion for sake-kasu (sake lees) has grown so much bigger. I always have loved sake-kasu and dishes made with it, but my use of sake-kasu used to be limited to traditional soup/ hot pot style dishes and making marinade for fish (or sometimes pork). But lately, I’ve discovered the versatility of this magical ingredient, and have made so many wonderful dishes with it. Sake-kasu can be used for savory dishes, dessert, or even drinks. It can be used hot or cold. Best of all, sake-kasu has wonderful natural flavors packed with UMAMI.

Just like what okara (soy pulp) is for tofu, sake-kasu (sake lees) is a by-product of sake (drink). In other words, it’s leftover after making sake. Sake is made from rice, koji (mold), and water. After the process of alcoholic fermentation the liquid (finished sake) is filtered and leaves mash behind. This mash is sake lees. There are two general types of sake lees. Hard-press sake-kasu from making lesser grade (and less-polished rice sake, like “Honjozo”) sake, and soft puree-like sake-kasu from making higher-grade sake (like more-polished rice sake, “Ginjo” or “Daiginjo”). This type is soft and also contains more residual alcohol, because sake is often filtered through hanging bags with natural gravity.


This is hard-press sake-kasu. It’s great for stew, marinade, or baking. It’s also most suitable for making pickles (but I can’t eat pickles…).


Soft-type sake-kasu is lately found in convenient tube packages, the flavor is cleaner and more pure because it’s made from more polished rice. It’s great for soup, appetizer (salad) dishes to use without heating, or drink.

For the hard-press sake-kasu, also just like okara, sake-kasu is known for its remarkable health benefits (different benefits from okara’s). Sake-kasu’s known benefits include helping lowering cholesterol level, making blood flow smooth, making healthier skin, to name a few. In Japan, you also find sake-kasu beauty treatments such as sake-kasu massage, facial mask, or even sake-kasu bath!


In Japan, winter is the high-season for sake making, so it’s naturally also the high-season for sake-kasu. You can also find some premium-quality sake-kasu from high-end Daiginjo, etc. Here in LA, your choices will be limited, but you can still find decent-quality sake-kasu at Japanese grocery stores. I buy a big batch of sake-kasu and portion into small batches based on weight, so they are conveniently ready anytime I need a certain amount of it.

Hopefully I can post more sake-kasu dishes pictures in my blog. You can find my sake-kasu nabe (hot pot) and sake-kasu cake pictures from my recent post here.

Donabe hot pot...Salt sukiyaki with mushrooms

This sukiyaki doesn't use any soy sauce, so it's called salt-sukiyaki. I found a recipe by a famous Japanese chef, and tweaked it to my version.

It's very easy to make and also very healthy, as it's mostly mushrooms and vegetables. For this dish, you can use any kind of classic-style donabe, but I would particularly recommend Kyoto-style shallow and wide donabe, because the dish is cooked with less amount of broth than regular (soupy) hot pot dishes.

Bacon was sauteed in the donabe first, then burdock root, broth, mushrooms were added. Once everything is cooked through, I put a big pile of mizuna on top, and let it wilt with the cover on for a minut or so. To finish, all the ingredients were mixed together. To serve, I like dipping the cooked ingredients in a bowl of raw egg (like how we eat sukiyaki in Japan), but if you are afraid of raw egg, you can just serve it with some broth and condiments such as grated daikon radish, shichimi pepper, etc. It was so delicious! Here's my recipe.

Salt Sukiyaki with Mushrooms

Ingredients

4-6 oz bacon, cut into 1.5" strips

3 oz gobo (burdock root), thinly sliced and soaked in water for 15 minutes

2+ cups mixed mushrooms, such as shiitake, eryingi, shimeji, enoki, sliced as necessary

1.5 cups mizuna, bottom part removed, and cut into 2" length

(sauce)

1.5 cups dashi stock

1/4 cup sake

1/4 cup mirin

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon salt

Condiments: Raw egg (for dipping), shichimi pepper, grated daikon, etc.

Procedure

1. Saute the bacon in the donabe. By using paper towel, soak up excess fat released.

2. Add the burdock root and continue to saute for a minute or two.

3. Combine the ingredients for the sauce and add to the donabe.

4. Add the mushrooms. Let them simmer until the mushrooms are cooked through.

5. Cover the surface with the mizuna. Cover with the lid and let it wilt for 1 minute.

6. Open and stir well.

7. Serve with your choice of condiments.

Happy donabe life.

More donabe-steamed sake manju

I had the cravings, so I made more...

Anko (red bean paste) was mixed with roasted walnuts. They were made into balls. The dough was made from wholewheat flour, baking powder, sake lees ("sake-kasu"), sake, and sugar. They were also made into the same number of balls as the anko balls and pressed into a disk shape.

Each anko balls were wrapped in the dough (then I brushed extra sake on the surface) and steamed in the donabe steamer, "Mushi Nabe" for about 10 minutes. The aroma was so sake-eey and so beautiful.

You can really smell and taste the sake in the maju (dumpling) skin. I love it.

You can find the recipe on toiro's website. It's so easy, so hope you will try.

Happy donabe life.