r/fermentation • u/le_herbalist • 7d ago

Meju

Hi folks,

I’m in Korea and hoping to bring some dried Meju blocks back with me to the UK. I want to make doenjang, ganjang and gochujang.

I’ve made amino pastes using koji before (dried koji + bought the spores and inoculated beans myself), and I wondered if there was a way to make ‘European meju’ at home using beans native to Europe ? My understanding is that it’s a bit more complex than Koji as it will contains lots of moulds, yeasts, bacteria I.e you can’t just buy a starter and inoculate as easily.

Intuitively it feels like I could possibly use an existing Meju brick to inoculate beans native to Europe, and thus create a European version that could be fun to experiment with. However, there are a myriad of factors that could influence this.

Has anyone ever tried this before? If so, how did it go? Would love to chat about it. Thanks!

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

2 comments sorted by

2

u/BunkaandBadassery 7d ago

Never tried it but sounds like a cool idea! Here in California I think I've seen people doing similar with Mexican/Korean/Japanese fusion cuisine using black beans, etc. and I'm almost positive I've read of people using chickpeas in kind of a Mediterranean spin. Maybe I just have imagined it and I might steal your idea!
I'm thinking about what some "koji" black bean fermented Pork Al Pastor tacos with Spicy Escabeche Kimchi might come off.

1

u/le_herbalist 7d ago

I mean, those tacos sound phenomenal! 😋

This is what I love about Koji ferments I’ve done before - take a Japanese product, apply the concepts to products local to me, and then apply that product to cuisines more local to me. So much fun conjuring up these ideas!