Jeremy Umansky – The Koji Expert

Chef Jeremy Umansky

What we covered in this episode

Chef Jeremy Umansky mentions that they were really fortunate that a good half of our business before the pandemic was to-go-food. They have greatly pared down the amount of offerings that we've been been doing on a given day.
He lists some of the pickles they were making during the pandemic: kosher dill pickle, green bean pickles, cucumber pickles, and Koji cabbage pickle.
We talked about what got him into fermentation ad how he discovered Koji.
Chef Jeremy Umansky explains that Koji is the backbone of many foods in Asia, especially the core ingredient like amino pastes like Miso and alcohols like Makgeolli or sake, and, some soy sauce like Shochu. So many of them cannot be made without Koji.
He presents his book Koji Alchemy. It is not a cookbook in the traditional sense. Chef Jeremy Umansky wanted to give people the tools to explore and use Koji through their own cultural lens.
He explains that Koji don't shorten the curing time but it can bring down the drying time by as much as 60%.
At Larder Delicatessen in Ohio City, the two things they offer all the time are their pastrami sandwich and their fried chicken sandwich. And in both of those, they use Koji.
Chef Jeremy Umansky describes his creative process as collaborative because when you're making food to serve to large amounts of people, you have so many varying degrees of preferences for different things. So working as a team is really important.
Seasonality is the driver and the inspiration. Enjoying something that is so special that you hold it in high regard.
Chef Jeremy Umansky shares his past problems with drug and alcohol and the big focus of the restaurant industry needs to be that you can work in this profession, you can embrace it and you don't need those things.
Series of rapid-fire questions.
Link to the podcast episode on Apple Podcast

Links to other episodes in Cleveland, OH

Conversation with Chef Brett Sawyer

Submitted questions from podcast listeners

Chef Jeremy Umansky's fried chicken sandwich recipe

The fried chicken sandwich, it starts with a bun that we made, and it's a buttermilk bread recipe in which we culture the buttermilk with Koji first. And it adds this wonderful, cheesy note that's above and what buttermilk would normally have. So we do that. We bake the bread, the chicken itself, you know, for those of you that, that kind of want to do this at home. We make a marinade of two parts buttermilk. So one part amazake, which is a liquid version of Koji, and we marinate the chicken in there with a little bit of salt. We put a little bit of either hot sauce or cayenne in there, and our house spice mixture, which is a blend of toasted yeast. We take just regular baker's yeast and we toast it. And then oven for about a 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes to an hour untill it's just golden brown and malty. And we blend that with some caraway and juniper and black pepper and sesame and mustard seed. We add that mixture to the chicken. We let it marinate. Sometimes if we're in a rush, it just gets about an hour, but other times, we prefer to let it go overnight. And then we pre cook the chicken before we fry it. So we'll bake it off on a sheet tray in the oven, just until it's cooked. We typically bring it to about 155 and then let it carry over. And then once it's cooled, we put it back in the marinade and then we go into the bread and the fry. For the breading we use equal parts all purpose flour, and cornstarch. We also put our house spice mixture into, so we've got your cooked marinated chicken, you dredge it. And then we fry it 325 just for a few minutes. So, the whole sandwich itself, we put on a house mayonaise that we make. It is mayo, some of the mustard that we make, which is a mix of a Midwestern spicy brown mustard and a whole grain mustard. We put some pickles on there and we dressed the whole thing with an oil and vinegar slaw. It's cabbage, it has cherry Kool-Aid pickled onions in it, and lots of fresh dill. And the dressing for that is a vinegarette that we make with Koji, our mustard and some oil. So put the whole thing together and you've got this beautiful, beautiful fried chicken sandwich.

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I did some more research and found out that Koji is the backbone of many foods in Asia, especially the core ingredient like amino pastes like Miso and alcohols like Makgeolli or sake, and, some soy sauce like Shochu. So many of them cannot be made without Koji.

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People have been working with Koji for thousands and thousands of years, and going back even 150 years, people had far less access to technology and modern resources that we have now.

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Koji smells intoxicating and sensual, and we compare it to this mix of Granny Smith apple and honeysuckle meets roasted chestnut and just a little bit of mushroom. Kind of earthy funk.

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That's the driver, that's the inspiration, that intense seasonality and enjoying something that is so special that you hold it in high regard.

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Self-realization. That's the first thing. If the individual doesn't want it, no matter how much you give to them, it's a waste of everybody's time. And that's the unfortunate thing with addiction and alcoholism.

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