Miso Madness is almost over as the Munchkin is starting to feel twitchy over our dwindling supply of soap…
…which means that our run of frenzied fermentation is coming to an end and the previously, prematurely terminated Soap Marathon is going to have to resume (yeah, our soaps are really popular and people just can’t get enough of them; this is A Good Thing, she tells me ;-P).
After the frenzy of rice koji making and the resulting shinshu and shiro misos, we are ending our run with a couple of pig tail buckets of hatcho miso. The first bucket was made two days ago, however, it turned out to be about a gallon short because I held back some of the black bean koji to reinoculate the next batch of beans. There was a slight set-back with that particular batch (yes, yes, I’m sure you’ve heard about the Great Bean Bungle…let’s move on…) and to make a long story short, another batch had to be introduced into the equation. Anyway, back to the short bucket: I just “happened” to have a gallon batch of miso from last year which was made with cacao beans and while very aromatic, the chocolate taste was just too overpowering (yes, chocolate-lovers, this is actually possible!). So, we emptied all of the containers, mixed them together again with the addition of bird peppers (Korean-style??) and a generous handful of black peppercorns.
Mixing Black Beans, Last Year’s Chocolate Miso, Chilli Peppers and Black Peppercorns.
And voila’, the first full bucket of Belizean Style Chocolate (Cacao Bean) Hatcho Miso (with chilli and black pepper) was born:
Making Coconut cream and flour involves quite a few steps, a little muscle, time and diligence. When you do everything from scratch, you realise the value of what you are actually making. The making of the cream and flour go hand in hand as you will see from the following steps:
Firstly, Gnome has to climb a coconut tree to harvest and then he de-husks them. Next, he splits them in half and grates the flesh with a shredder attached to a hand-drill.
Grating Coconuts.
The next step is to squeeze the liquid out of the coconut. I usually add some boiling water to the coconut and I squeeze the shredded coconut through a muslin cloth to get all the milk and cream out. This is done in small portions in order to maximise the quantity and once all the milk/cream has been extracted, the shredded coconut is placed in trays and laid outside to sun-dry.
Coconut Meal Ready For Drying.
Meanwhile, the liquid is placed in the fridge and as it cools down, the milk separates to the bottom and the cream forms a layer a the top. The cream is skimmed off the top, a number of times, and poured into these bags for selling:
Coconut Cream For Sale.
Each bag contains the fresh cream of one coconut. Belizeans like to cook rice with this; a Belizean cook in Punta Gorda told me that he just needed one of these bags to cook a 5lb pot of rice. Another great way to use this cream is to indulge in a pina colada or blend with fruit to make a yummy coconut “shake.” You can even use it in bread making to give a silky texture to a loaf.
Usage and Storage of Coconut Cream:
Our coconut cream is sold in the frozen state. Store in the freezer. When you are ready to use, simply use it in the frozen state. If you only require a small amount, cut off a chunk with a knife and store the remaining cream in the freezer. The shelf life of this product is 6 months if stored properly in the freezer.
Anyway, back to the shredded coconut; it takes about 6 to 8 hours for it to completely dry in the sun. Once dried, the coconut is put through a stone mill to grind it into flour. You end up with a fluffy meal which is perfect for breads, pancakes and muffins and it is has the added bonus of being gluten-free.
Coconut Flour.
The coconut flour has a nutty flavour which adds texture to all kinds of foods. 1lb (454g) of this flour contains the meal of about 6 to 7 coconuts.
Usage and Storage of Coconut Flour:
Coconut flour is highly nutritious so should be stored in the refrigerator or freezer. The coconut flour can be stored in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. Otherwise, it can be stored in the freezer for up to 6 months. We usually deliver this product in the frozen state; in order to thaw this product, simply place in the fridge for 24 hours.
We are currently selling coconut cream, stone-ground coconut flour and rice flour within Belize. The coconut cream can only be sold within Punta Gorda. However, flours can be transported anywhere within Belize. Please check out The Apothecary for our Health Food prices.
On this day the Miso Mission has been accomplished. The rice koji was ready and properly colonised and both of us were in the right frame of mind, with only a mild attack of filibustering on Munchkin’s part (she had very specific plans as to what she expected to do this morning), to tackle the mountain of beans and gallons of purple-black bean juice (from boiling said beans) required for the making of our Belizean-Style Black Bean Shinshu Miso.
The black beans were defrosted, boiled to tenderness (which thankfully doesn’t take too long with black beans), drained and then mashed. The use of words makes things appear so easy but while doing, it certainly seemed that there was a veritable mountain of beans. I left the temperature probe out of the rice koji and room temperature was 36C, so the mashing built up a bit of a sweat.
Starting to mash the beans.The Never-Ending Beans!
In the mean time, Munchkin, while muttering to herself that she needed to do other stuff, mixed the bean juice with sea salt, cooled it and added some commercial miso to the mix (for extra lots of beneficial microorganisms). Thank you, Adriana Guzman for giving us some for this purpose.
Black Bean Juice, Sea Salt and Old Miso to Make the Liquid Portion.
The rice koji had to be added to the beans and mixed well. Using a spoon did not work and I had to resort to using my hands…you can see the excitement that was gripping me at the time!
Adding the Rice Koji to the Mashed Beans.My hands convulse with excitement as I mix everything together!
After adding the liquid portion and mixing again, it was time to fill the prepared 5 gallon pig-tail bucket. This accomplished, a nice layer of salt was added on the top for protection against undesirable microorganisms.
Bucket-Full-of-Miso Ready for Sealing.Sealed Bucket…only have to wait 12-18 months now!!
What happened next was a total, super bonus for me, though it earned me this look from the Munchkin…
…there was still a whole lot of rice koji left and in the back of my mind I couldn’t help but think of the 28-day Miso Countdown before we run out…the solution…shiro miso. This type of miso is made up mostly of rice koji, only half the salt and a little bit of beans (compared to shinshu). The beauty of it and the reason why it is of critical importance right now, is that it only takes four to eight weeks to mature. Bonsa…we have the answer to our miso shortage!
So, I figured we could make a test gallon of this sweet miso but after measuring out the required koji, realised that we used up all the beans in making the monster bucket; we still had bean juice left-over but no beans. Resolution: fortunately I had already grated the day’s quota of coconuts and Munchkin had already squeezed out the cream from them (for selling in town to people that don’t want to buy cans or powdered coconut cream) and we were left with the meal. We decided to experiment and replace the bean portion of the miso with de-creamed coconut meal. Once the cream is removed, what is left is actually quite high in protein and while not a legume, it might make a good replacement for beans (it also makes things Belizean and exotic!). We still used the left over bean juice though.
Mixing the coconut, rice koji and salt.
The bean juice gave everything a slight purple tinge (pretty cool, actually!)…
Bean Juice Added to the Miso.
Here it is packed into a gallon jar:
Coconut Shiro Miso.
You would think that this was enough…hee…hee…hee…but I got another look shot my way…
…there was still another lot of koji left to make another batch…so we did…
Five gallons of shinshu miso and two gallons of shiro miso…not bad for a day’s work!!
It is hot yet again, slightly more humid though, perhaps. Munchkin is keeping herself busy and has left me to my own devices. I was excited that today was THE day for transformation of the rice koji into miso; afterall, we did soak black beans in preparation and the big pressure cooker was cleaned and readied for action. However, upon close examination of the inoculated rice grains, I made an executive decision and decided to go for another twenty-four hours. The soaked black beans have been transferred into the freezer until the time is right.
While nicely colonised, cracking the rice grain open showed that the mold could still penetrate the grain a bit further. Also, deep inside my gnomish heart, that mad, self-sufficiency streak wants the Aspergillus mold to start fruiting (ie. make spores) so that I can collect the yellow-green spores and replenish my supply for future batches. While not impossible to bring into Belize, the starter cultures are difficult to order and then ship into the country without some hoops having to be jumped through (I’ve got a friend in Japan who feels like he owes me a favour but I don’t want to collect on his good will yet!). Being able to harvest my own spores would free me from this dependency on factors that I don’t have control over. Let’s see if I can pull it off…the plot thickens…
Colonised Rice Grains…not quite ready.
It is hard to assuage Fermentation Frenzy once it grabs hold of you so I had to find something to still my trembling nerves while waiting for the koji to continue its colonisation. I finally decided to rack some mead that has been sitting around settling and aging…I had been dissatisfied with the way this batch has been clearing and decided to do something I usually don’t do: use some gelatin finings to try and clear it a bit more. I was concerned that perhaps it had not cleared well because of contamination and doing this would also afford the opportunity to have a quick taste.
Racked Mead with Finings Added.
This accomplished, the moment of truth arrived: the presentation of a slightly cloudy glass of non-carbonated mead to the tasting expert, Munchkin. Fortunately and happily (for both of us) the sampling test was passed and I received a smile of approval from Missus Munchkin! Yosh!
The Taste Test.
Can’t wait to see what happens tomorrow! Cheers to all!
It continues to be hot, dusty and windy…in Sardinia we would say that we are afflicted with scirocco, that wind that comes from the Sahara and North Africa…it feels very similar and makes one feel terribly miserable. Yes, you guessed it, headache is back today.
However, my life is not only bearable but actually exciting…the Spirit of Aspergillus has taken residence in the carefully prepared rice and the next twenty-four hours will lead to our desired goal…rice koji!
It is always nice to open the bundles and inhale the fruity, mushroomy bouquet of a successful inoculation.
The opened bundles.
The rice grains are covered with a white, cottony growth and you can feel the “live” heat (like having a cat on your lap) emanating from the rice. Everything needs to be transferred into bags as it will overheat and spoil if kept in a bundle.
Rice divided up into six 10 pound bags.
Time to flatten it all up, stick a temperature probe in and wait another twenty-four hours.
Nice neat stacks.
Keep an eye on the temperature…the bags make it easy to spread everything out if cooling is necessary (especially since I’m doing this in “summer” and you’re not supposed to ;-p).
Keeping an eye on the temperature.
This link takes you to the more detailed instructions I’ve written in making rice koji in the Bored-in-Belize Library if you ever want to do this yourself: Making Rice Koji.
Since we already know that we will be making some shinshu miso from this batch of rice koji, we’ve started the preparation of the beans: cleaning, washing and soaking overnight. We use black beans and not soy beans because a) they (soy) are harder to find and b) we are making Belize/Central American shinshu miso and we want to remain culturally appropriate.
Cor blimey it’s a scorcher today! I suddenly feel very relieved that I am on restricted duties. The sun is blazing down, the earth is developing big cracks and the ducks, who normally can’t be bothered to walk the two hundred metres to the pond actually went for a dip to cool off and clean up.
Hard core miso purists will probably look at this post and scoff at me for trying to make miso in “summer,” so to speak (dry season here is like summer), since you are supposed to make it in winter because …….. (fill in blank with the usual stuff that poncy, purist, fundamentalists say when they are trying to put you down and show how much smarter they are than you but I digress…). So, anyway, this is day two of Miso Madness (made in the summer, ha, ha, ha!):
Yesterday’s rice was soaked, drained and steamed.
Overnight-soaked rice being drained thoroughly.Loading bamboo steamers with rice.
Then the cooked rice had to be spread out and cooled before inoculating with the right Aspergillus mold.
Cooling cooked rice.Mixing mold spores into cooled rice.
The most pleasurable part of the process is making the final bundle to incubate the rice and get one step closer to rice koji.
The finished bundle.
Tune in tomorrow for the next stage in making rice koji…
It is day three of the enforced ban on heavy work. Very bad headache yesterday (Tumulkin Day) but fortunately today there have been no problems…just a gnawing inner feeling that the brush really, really does need to be cleared since it is perfect dry season weather for it. Munchkin won’t budge and won’t even allow an elixir tasting to happen (The irony of life: when I want to sit around and do F-all, she can’t wait for me to work…when I’m dying to get off my butt and do something, I’m not allowed…).
So, I’ve permitted myself to be overwhelmed by Miso Madness: I just realized that the test gallon we made is only going to last 28 days!!! That means we have to make at least three pig-tail buckets a year in order to eat miso every day. The frenzy that this knowledge engendered inside my gnomish heart (the Munchkin’s too but she won’t admit it!) got us into town at 0800 on a non-town day to purchase 50 pounds of rice and 50 pounds of black beans…to find out that the Chinese wholesaler was still closed!! We ended up going to Quality Chicken instead and thankfully they were open…BZ$72.50 for 50 pounds of black beans and BZ$44.00 for 50 pounds of rice later, our happy humanoids were rushing home (BTW no diesel in town today)…
We’re going to start with some shinshu miso first and that means making rice koji. Time to wash some rice:
Washing all the dirt and starch from the rice (Can you see the gnome foot?).
Have to get all the starch off of the rice so it doesn’t get gummy and sticky at steaming time tomorrow when we enter day 2 of making rice koji…
The days are becoming hotter and drier, with rains becoming fewer and far between. This is the time to harvest anything that you can get your hands on and dry it.
Sapodillas are still in season:
Sapodilla Fruit.
We have gathered quite a bit to sun-dry.
Dried Sapodilla Fruit.
When dried, they make a very good substitute for dates; they are intensely sweet and would be good for baking. Gnome will be making mead with dried sapodilla…watch this space!
We have also been drying orange peel:
Dried Orange Peel.
Dried orange peel can be added to savouries like stews, curries and soups to impart a warm, orange flavour. It can also be ground up and used in cakes and breads. It is extremely versatile and uses up something that you would normally throw away. I hate to waste anything, especially when it involves something edible! Look out for my recipes which use orange peel:
Sapodilla Curry with Venison.
You will find this recipe in Belize Wild Recipes; this one is an orange peel curry.
Okay everyone, start sun-drying all your fruits now!!
A couple of months ago, Gnome made Lime Sulphur as a Bored-in-Belize project. One of the many uses of it is a dip for dogs and cats. It can be applied for mange, fleas and ringworm. We tested our formula on the two dogs and the cat today (not the guinea pigs!!). We poured out a quantity of the concentrated lime sulphur and diluted it with water in a bucket:
Measuring Lime Sulphur.2 Gallons of Diluted Lime Sulphur.
A rag was dipped into the bucket of solution and the dogs and cat were soaked with it. Prior to this, they all got a wash with our sulphur soap. There were no complaints from any any animals concerned as we sponged them copiuosly with this bright yellow fluid. They seemed to like the smell of rotten eggs!!
Sulfuring Doggie.
Sorry, no picture of the other doggie because we both had to hold her down because she is the mad one that likes to lick toads.
Sulfuring The Cat.
The cat actually stayed still and did not seem to mind the extremely pungent smell. After all that, we were both smelling of sulphur; Gnome said that he felt spiritually cleansed…I think he was referring to fire and brimstone and all that stuff!!
Today, I want to talk about how to cook Corn Grits in a different way. This involves grinding whole corn and steaming it with a minimal amount of water which results in a cooked, gritty meal which behaves just like ordinary wheat cous cous. This is great because it is gluten-free and you are not eating the usual gloopy consistency associated with cooked corn (hominy/polenta).
For those interested, corn is one of the cheapest carbohydrates which you can buy in Belize. A 100lb bag of Mayan Corn (GMO-free, I might add) costs only $35 Belize Dollars (USD 17.50).
Corn Cous Cous.
The trick is to thoroughly wash the starch out of coarsely ground corn. If you want to know how to prepare this click on Corn Cous Cous.
Miso Madness is almost over as the Munchkin is starting to feel twitchy over our dwindling supply of soap…
