I am at heart, an experimentalist. I understand that recipes exist, I’ve even written some out, with extra spaces all around to scribble in notes for when I have forgotten key information. I KNOW I cook mostly by feel, so the space to leave extra clues is pretty important. So this journey starts with sriracha, the famous rooster decked fermented hot sauce and it is only just beginning
Carrot and chilli fermented hot sauce
I have a few random chilli plants growing around (the mole chilli growing project is another story). In typical Beeso fashion I have no idea what they are or where they came from. But they would do for a first attempt at a lacto fermented chilli sauce. I won’t bore everyone with how it works, just accept it is kitchen magic and enjoy the delicious fiery heat (turns out the random chillies in my garden packed a punch). I love a chilli paste more than fresh chilli. Once you get a handle on the heat it is a really good way to get consistent heat and subtle flavour into your cooking.
Kombucha, Koji, Pineapple and lemongrass chilli sauce
Once the first batch was a success and I started down the rabbit holes of different recipes of course I went madder than a Bond villain in a laser shop. Carrot and chilli sauce! Pineapple, lemongrass and garlic chilli sauce! Mwhahahahahahahahaha. I kept searching for new information and in all the reading and YouTube and reddit threads I follow one name key cropping up. Noma
Inoculating rice with Koji spores
Rene Redzepi and his restaurant Noma is famous as being the best high end dining in the world. But it his fermentation lab, and the way he uses Japanese and other Asian fermentation techniques on hyper local ingredients is what really makes him stands out. I got his book to learn more about Kombucha, as I felt I really needed to learn to make it and stop buying the store bought stuff.
A hacked together Koji incubator
What I read in that book blew my experimental mind. The key ingredient in miso, fish sauce, soy sauce was a mouldy rice called koji. And it has uses pretty much only limited to what you can dream up. Pumpkin seed miso? Squid and mullet gut fish sauce? A umami laced fermented chilli sauce? Experimental dry aged small goods? Once I’d smashed through that one I bought the koji bible, Koji Alchemy and kept learning.
Lacto fermented green tomatoes from the garden for a lacto ferment green chutney
The best thing though, everything I learned, all essentially said the same thing, try whatever you can dream up, and you might get something amazing. If you are planning on eating anything in the next year at lantanaland, be prepared to be experimented on.
Fully grown koji
