Miso Making Workshop
Miso Making Workshop
Miso is one of the most essential seasonings in everyday Japanese home cooking, alongside soy sauce. It provides the gut with beneficial nutrients that support overall health, as good gut health is linked to both 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, is a type of mould (fungus) that is responsible for the fermentation of miso, sake, mirin, soy sauce and rice vinegar, earning it the affectionate nickname "Japan's national fungus."
Miso is regional and diverse in Japan. Some varieties are pale, others red, and some 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 soybeans before cooking
* How to cook the soybeans
* How to mix the ingredients
* How best to store the miso and ferment it
* How to make three simple miso recipes:
1. Aubergine with dark miso paste
2. Perfect everyday miso soup
3. Wakame seaweed and cucumber salad in miso and rice vinegar
4. Miso onigiri (rice ball)
At the end of the class, you will enjoy a wonderfully homely miso soup and the delicious miso dishes made during the class, along with a glass of refreshment of your choice. Full recipes will be 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 six months before it is ready to be used.
The class size is small and held in the instructor's own kitchen, creating 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.
Great team and teacher! The group really enjoyed the class
This was a very informative class, full of detail and yet easy to follow tips and techniques on making rolled sushi. At the end of the class we ate some of the sushi along with a glass of chilled, delicious sake and then took the rest home. The ingredients used were very high end and we left with our own sushi kit and white sesame seeds, which I thought made it excellent value.
I just attended the Sushi Master Class with Akemi. I had learned so much from Akemi and thoroughly enjoyed the day. If you are interested in gaining some skills in a wonderful environment, I would encourage you to join one of these classes. Michael.