Brad Experiments with Koji

Jesus Christ Vinny, we gotta put a bell on you.

Alright guys, today on It's Alive, we're gonna set up

a couple pieces of boneless short-rib,

boneless chicken thigh, and some experimental shrimp

with some koji, I've done all of 'em but the shrimp,

but you know it's a test kitchen so we'll give it a shot.

You know I never claimed to be an expert.

We're just learning together Vinny.

(upbeat music)

Alright Vinny, let's get started with the koji.

And what it is, is just rice that's inoculated with a mold.

It's the alive part.

It comes like this, check this out Vinny.

Little granulars, and what I do,

is I turn it into a little powder.

Just throw it in a good blender.

So I just blitz this.

You gotta be a little careful.

It gets a little powdery.

And it gets in the air, and it has mold.

I'm always scared to breathe it, ya know.

Growing things in your lungs, or something.

Oh do you see that smoke? Get away from that Vinny!

And that's it, that's our powder.

Ah, gadzooks!

They moved it on me Vinny, oh here we go.

You know, you get people down here, really nice,

and we share the walk in,

and they come down here and I have prod--

(electronic music)

Nice boneless short rib, it's one of my favorite cuts,

and it's relatively cheap.

You can usually get it for like ten bucks a pound.

And then I got some shrimp, just shell on regular shrimp,

we're going to peel them real quick.

I've never done the koji with shrimp,

but ya know we'll give it a shot.

So it tends to make it a little sweeter,

it gives it a little funkiness, over time.

And when you cook them, they're caramelize faster.

Might be good, might be bad.

But we'll learn together.

Alright Vinny, these are just some boneless chicken thighs

So I got my powdered koji, and what I do

is just sprinkle it on it.

And then you just kinda like work it, and pat it in.

You want to use a decent amount.

Um, yeah, I thought about wearing gloves,

it's not harmful to me.

I'm not gonna go licking my fingers or rubbing my eyeball.

I'm gonna wash my hands after.

You could use gloves,

I feel like we use gloves for everything.

I'm not preparing it for other people

maybe just some other co-workers and stuff

but they're used to my hands.

We could de-vein them, I'm not going to.

Okay?

Sue me.

Because they're smaller, and they're a little more delicate

It would probably take less time

than the chicken and the beef, beef taking the longest.

Alright, so I'm going to put it right down here

uncovered, I'm going to let it breathe.

Right in here, Vinny.

(electronic music)

Oh you can really see the difference,

especially in the boneless short ribs.

Got a little darkness on the edges there, nice!

Firming up!

Today's Friday, come Monday all the shrimp

will probably be done. Given the size of them

and the fact that it's seafood, it's not gonna hang out

as long as well as the red meat, or even the chicken.

Maybe we'll just cook a couple shrimp real quick,

what do you think?

What do you think Vin?

Give me a nod.

Vin?

After the shrimp has been sitting in the koj

you want to rinse them.

And you see that shine?

It kind of changed the whole texture.

Someone said Why are you cooking them in olive oil?

Why not?

I'm not going to add anything to it, I just want to see

how it tastes, by itself.

We'll just cook those up a little bit.

(jazz piano music)

Alright Vin.

Oh yeah, it does make it a little tougher

but not in a bad way.

Not in a chewy way.

Hey Chris, Claire, anyone, you guys wanna try this?

[Claire] How many days?

Uh three.

Nothing else, no salt no nothing.

No salt?

Nothing!

(digital beeping)

It's got a little bit of sweetness to it.

[Claire] I like the texture.

They're good!

Success, oh stop it Chris.

Maybe we'll do one without.

Try one without, see what happens.

We're gonna cook one with the koj on.

Here in the test kitchen we bounce a lot of

ideas off each other, we help each other.

And that was a good idea.

Thank you Claire.

Ooh la la, look at that Vin!

The koj one is getting a little koji crust.

Claire I think you might be on to something.

It's nice, adds a nice flavor.

The shrimp, delicious, I don't think it needs

to go much longer at all, than the four days.

It could probably go to three.

We'll put the chicken and the beef back in to the reach-in.

Because I know that can go the extra time.

Especially the beef, the chicken will be fine.

(jazz music)

Look at that, almost looks a little funky right?

But in a good way.

I think the sweet spot might be like three days,

with the chicken.

But we'll see. Maybe this is the sweet spot.

So lets give these a little rinse.

Look how dark the meat got.

Should put a little bit of earl down here.

There you go, baby.

I'll salt it at the end, because I just want to see

it's pace and how it cooks.

For the sake of science, we're gonna do it just like this.

And this is on pretty low.

So we're gonna let them cook nice low and slow.

Damn ghost town, down here.

See this little glaze-y here Vin?

Almost looks like we applied a little sugar to it.

Right?

But we did not!

That's a hell of a crust on there.

And we didn't add anything.

Let's pop this over here bud.

Look at that, nice color, nice.

[Vinny] Wow.

This would be great over some rice, I mean Christ,

throw it in a taco, on a piece of bread,

throw it on anything.

Boneless chicken thigh, can't go wrong with that.

The chicken is surprisingly tender.

Sure.

That's the second time we heard soy.

Smells good!

Smells good, right, what's it smell like?

Kind of, um, soy?

(laughs)

No but, that can be a different video.

Maybe a different website.

(jazz music)

The chicken was a lot better than

what I thought it was gonna be.

Very juicy, because it was thinner too, the boneless thigh,

it really penetrated from both ends real nicely.

Just a home run, on the week.

I think you can go five days fine if you're worried

about chicken hanging out in the fridge,

but it shouldn't be a problem.

With the shrimp that we did, we left the koji on

and gave it a nice crispy-kinda-crunchy

little texture on the top.

Which was very nice.

I'm afraid it might burn, if you did that with the chicken.

Some people like that charred flavor, ya know?

Some people call it burnt.

There you go, koji rubbed meats, why not?

You got some friends over,

and they don't know what koji is.

And you're telling them you're putting it on your meat.

It's been sitting in there for a week,

just tell them after, ya know?

Look at that, tray of carnage.

Hope nobody gets sick.

Save some of the prep work for you guys, I didn't want this

to just be stuff laying in the bowl ready to go,

like I'm some kind of Hollywood star.

We do our own prep around here.

I found out that I'm the only one who calls you Vinny.

I guess most call you Vincent.