a japanese life

the life and times of a young japanese woman

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Wait for 6month. :-)

11. This is it! it will be ready to eat after 6 month. The way using Sake Kasu is my friends' idea to avoid mold. Usually Miso gets mold on its surface. But according to my friend, if we do this way, it won't get mold. I am looking forward to eating my hand made Miso. Must be the tastiest Miso in my life. :-) Posted by Picasa

Seal the Miso with Sake Kasu

10. In the end, we seal the surface of Miso with Sake Kasu that is a sediment after squeezed Japanese Sake. This is also for not gettingt mold. Posted by Picasa

Sterlize the edge of cotainer

9. To avoid the mold gets glow on the surface of Miso, we stealize the edge of container with very strong alcohol. (12 used 35 dgrees) Posted by Picasa

Make the surface flat

9. Try to make the surface flat. Posted by Picasa

Throw the balls into the container

7. Throw the balls into the container from a hight. You try to hit the corner of the container. That's for letting out the air from the Miso balls. If there are spaces for the air in the Miso paste, it will cause mold. Posted by Picasa

Making balls

6. After it's well mixed, you make balls with the mixture. Posted by Picasa

Mix the mashed soy beans and malt with salt

5. Waiting for the soybeans' temperature untill get to be around 40 degree (It's the sign of OK, if you feel not very hot when you put your hand into the mashed beans.) and add mixture of malt and salt, and mix them well with hands. Posted by Picasa

Cook soybeans and mash

2. Soak 1.3kg of soybeans for 1 night.
3. Cook the beans with pressure cooker for 15 mins with pressure, turn off the gas and leave it untill it gets quiet.
4. Mash the beans well. It should be still very hot when you mash it. Posted by Picasa

Mix Salt and Koji

1. Mix 500g of Salt and 1.3kg of Koji (rice malt, farmentted with special bacteria named Koji Kin) Posted by Picasa

Miso Making!


We made Japanese Miso. In my glanma's generation, it was so common to make Miso in each family. But these days, most of families don't make Miso in their house. This is first experience for me actually. Posted by Picasa

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Ancient rice

this is rice cooked with some ancient black rice.
there are many kind of ancient rice. this is one of them and we call this black rice. Very good for health. We add just a little black rice into normal japanese white rice, then the color gets to be red. Posted by Picasa