Fermentation: Make Your Own Miso Workshop
Fermentation: Make Your Own Miso Workshop
Miso is one of the most essential condiments in Japanese diet, along with soy sauce. It provides the gut with beneficial bacteria that help us to stay healthy, good gut health is known to be linked to our overall mental and physical wellness. Miso is rich in essential minerals and a good source of various B vitamins, vitamins E, K and folic acid.
Aspergillus oryzae, known as koji, a filamentous fungus is used to ferment the soy beans. Koji is also responsible for the fermentation of sake and soy sauce, so it is sometimes affectionally called 'Japan's national fungus'.
Miso is extremely regional and diverse in Japan, some are pale while others are red, and some are almost black. Miso varies in sweetness and saltiness.
During the class, you will learn:
*How miso is made
*What determines the colour and taste of miso
*What Koji is
*How to prepare the soy beans before cooking
*How to cook the soy beans
*How to mix the ingredients
*How best to store the miso and ferment
*How to make the 3 simple miso recipes:
(1) Baked aubergine with miso paste
(2) Perfect everyday miso soup
(3) Yuzu miso dip
At the end of the class, you will enjoy a wonderfully homely miso soup and the delicious miso dishes we made during the class, along with a glass of refreshment of your choice. Full recipes are provided by email after the class.
You will take home about 1kg of fresh miso to ferment at home which will mature over the following 6 months before they are ready to be used.
The class size is small and it is held at the instructor Akemi's own kitchen, in an intimate environment where you will feel at home. Akemi is a certified Japanese miso sommelier.
Instructor
Akemi Yokoyama
Akemi Yokoyama has a background in Japanese food provenance, nurtured from her Father, who along with his family foraged and fished throughout the Island of Hokkaido. She is now a Japanese food specialist, chef, presenter and writer based in London. Her regular Japanese cookery classes at Sozai have received very favourable reviews in the UK’s national media, including Time Out and The Telegraph. She has also appeared on the popular TV programmes, C4’s Sunday Brunch and CBBC's Saturday Mash-Up, teaching the presenters how to make sushi. She is also an in demand private chef. She has cooked for celebrities including Tina Turner and Rina Sawayama.
She demonstrates authentic Japanese cooking in the UK and Europe at many diverse events, and she regularly works with the Japanese government’s related organizations promoting Japanese cuisine and sake to the media and public. Her latest culinary interests include all aspects of fermentation and flavour experimentation across multiple food cultures. .
Akemi is a member of the Japanese Culinary Academy UK, is a certified miso sommelier. She has judged Sake category at International Wine Challenge in 2020/2021/2022/2024.
This was the second Sozai cooking class I have done with Akemi. Both were brilliant. Akemi is extremely knowledgeable about Japanese food, and I left both classes with lots of new information about Japanese food.
We made loads of delicious food, most of which we ate at the end of the class but we also got additional to take home. I would definitely recommend this class. The recipes are very approachable but still tasty, and I'm excited to try and replicate them at home. In three hours we managed to cook five dishes, which was really impressive.
I used to love sushi before going to class, but now I'm fully obsessed. I learnt a lot of new ways to prepare sushi. And the teacher was incredibly polite and helpful, explaining everything with great commitment. It was unthinkable that you couldn't understand something! If you don't know what to give for your close friends or family, this is the greatest gift to attend the roll & roll sushi class.
Cooking Ramen with Akemi was brilliant! We loved the insights and the final Ramen we cooked was delicious. The class size and atmosphere was perfect.