Local food directory

Cooking With Koji do Japanese homestyle cooking, based on fermented foods, and mostly vegetarian and vegan. The beauty of fermentation is that it enhances the flavor of ingredients and increases their nutritional value while at the same time making them less perishable. The Japanese have traditionally made full use of the technique of harnessing micro-organisms to produce and preserve diverse foods. At the foundation of this culture is koji, (the fungus Aspergillus oryzae).

At markets, they sell miso-based products, where miso is a traditional Japanese seasoning produced by fermenting soybeans with salt and koji. They also sell ready-to-drink miso vegetable soup.

Cooking With Koji hold regular cooking workshops in Preston, and their current schedule of workshops can be found on their website. Common topics include: miso paste making; shio koji making & cooking (shio koji is a fermented seasoning made with rice koji, which is cooked rice that has been inoculated with koji); nuka zuke (nuka zuke is a fermented pickling technique using rice bran); and amazake making & cooking (amazake is a fermented energy drink).