There are lots of items we often throw right in our baskets whilst dashing around our neighbourhood supermarket, and for many of us, we won’t even know are fermented foods. This ‘do it yourself’ ferment blog involves fermenting some of Smithy Mushroom’s baby shiitake mushrooms in two our favourite, lesser known ferments, Shoyu and Mirin. This fermentation process will leave you with two products at the end: the beautiful golden fermented mushrooms and the marinated Shoyu fluid, which can be bottled and used on a thousand different dishes. 

This fermentation process is very simple and easily done yourself at home, you’ll need all the ingredients mentioned above (or their alternatives) and a fermentation vessel, we used a small 500ml Kilner jar. Before you begin you want to just nip the ends of the stalks of your mushrooms, and check to ensure that there aren’t any bruised spots on your shrooms. 

As we are a no waste organisation, we usually just pop these little bits of stems or bruised mushrooms in the freezer, they’ll always throw into a stir fry mix or a veg stock. You want to closely pack your mushrooms into the bottom of your jar, filling to approximately halfway. Take your Kombu and cut it into a suitable size, feel free to fold it over a couple times and you want to wedge it on top of those mushrooms already in the jar, tightly packing them down. Please see photo's on the left to demonstrate.

You’re now going to do the same filling the rest of the jar with the remaining mushrooms, packing them closely together until the jar is near enough full. Once again, take some Kombu, cut to size and fold over your mushrooms, we tend to tuck the sheets either around the mushrooms or up around the side of the jar. Simultaneously, you're compacting the mushrooms, as well as creating a seal to prevent oxygen getting to the mushrooms once submerged. 

When you’re at this stage you want to add around 5 tablespoons of Mirin to the jar, and simply empty that bottle of Shoyu on top. Give your mushrooms one final push down, pushing the top layer of Kombu with your knuckles. You want to ensure that every nook of the mushrooms is submerged, and you don’t have any hidden air bubbles. Seal your jar and invert the jar gently to give the Shoyu and Mirin a good mix. Then, pop your mushrooms somewhere cool and dark for around 7 days. After this, empty the jar, and use your mushrooms (popping any spare in some Tupperware). The lovely rich fluid can be poured back into the original Shoyu bottle, for use on anything you please. The fermented mushrooms will last in the Tupperware in the fridge for another week. 

Now, the best bit, how do you eat them? Well as these mushrooms originate from East Asia and they’re marinated in beautiful flavours from this region of the world, we tend to stick to this cuisine. They’re fantastic on a fresh Chinese style salad, with mandarin segments, cutting the earthiness of this ferment with the sharp citrus. We’ve topped ramensdishes with these umami beauties, and tucked them away into a pad thai noodle dish. For this batch we used them as the “pièce de resistance” of a Tofu Katsu Bowl (see below). battered and fried Lacto Fermented Shimeji. 

There are lots of items we often throw right in our baskets whilst dashing around our neighbourhood supermarket, and for many of us, we won’t even know are fermented foods. This ‘do it yourself’ ferment blog involves fermenting some of Smithy Mushroom’s baby shiitake mushrooms in two our favourite, lesser known ferments, Shoyu and Mirin. This fermentation process will leave you with two products at the end: the beautiful golden fermented mushrooms and the marinated Shoyu fluid, which can be bottled and used on a thousand different dishes. 

This fermentation process is very simple and easily done yourself at home, you’ll need all the ingredients mentioned above (or their alternatives) and a fermentation vessel, we used a small 500ml Kilner jar. Before you begin you want to just nip the ends of the stalks of your mushrooms, and check to ensure that there aren’t any bruised spots on your shrooms. 

As we are a no waste organisation, we usually just pop these little bits of stems or bruised mushrooms in the freezer, they’ll always throw into a stir fry mix or a veg stock. You want to closely pack your mushrooms into the bottom of your jar, filling to approximately halfway. Take your Kombu and cut it into a suitable size, feel free to fold it over a couple times and you want to wedge it on top of those mushrooms already in the jar, tightly packing them down. Please see photo's below to demonstrate. 

You’re now going to do the same filling the rest of the jar with the remaining mushrooms, packing them closely together until the jar is near enough full. Once again, take some Kombu, cut to size and fold over your mushrooms, we tend to tuck the sheets either around the mushrooms or up around the side of the jar. Simultaneously, you're compacting the mushrooms, as well as creating a seal to prevent oxygen getting to the mushrooms once submerged. 

When you’re at this stage you want to add around 5 tablespoons of Mirin to the jar, and simply empty that bottle of Shoyu on top. Give your mushrooms one final push down, pushing the top layer of Kombu with your knuckles. You want to ensure that every nook of the mushrooms is submerged, and you don’t have any hidden air bubbles. Seal your jar and invert the jar gently to give the Shoyu and Mirin a good mix. Then, pop your mushrooms somewhere cool and dark for around 7 days. After this, empty the jar, and use your mushrooms (popping any spare in some Tupperware). The lovely rich fluid can be poured back into the original Shoyu bottle, for use on anything you please. The fermented mushrooms will last in the Tupperware in the fridge for another week. 

Now, the best bit, how do you eat them? Well as these mushrooms originate from East Asia and they’re marinated in beautiful flavours from this region of the world, we tend to stick to this cuisine. They’re fantastic on a fresh Chinese style salad, with mandarin segments, cutting the earthiness of this ferment with the sharp citrus. We’ve topped ramensdishes with these umami beauties, and tucked them away into a pad thai noodle dish. For this batch we used them as the “pièce de resistance” of a Tofu Katsu Bowl (see below).

There are lots of items we often throw right in our baskets whilst dashing around our neighbourhood supermarket, and for many of us, we won’t even know are fermented foods. This ‘do it yourself’ ferment blog involves fermenting some of Smithy Mushroom’s baby shiitake mushrooms in two our favourite, lesser known ferments, Shoyu and Mirin. This fermentation process will leave you with two products at the end: the beautiful golden fermented mushrooms and the marinated Shoyu fluid, which can be bottled and used on a thousand different dishes. 

Shoyu itself is the term given to a Japanese style soy sauce, this is generally thinner and clearer than their Chinese counterparts. But, how many of you knew that soy sauce is in fact a fermented item? It’s made from fermented soybeans, wheat, salt and water, which has undergone a complex fermentation process with a special aspergillus mould to produce a “koji” mash. 

This fermentation process is very simple and easily done yourself at home, you’ll need all the ingredients mentioned above (or their alternatives) and a fermentation vessel, we used a small 500ml Kilner jar. Before you begin you want to just nip the ends of the stalks of your mushrooms, and check to ensure that there aren’t any bruised spots on your shrooms. As we are a no waste organisation, we usually just pop these little bits of stems or bruised mushrooms in the freezer, they’ll always throw into a stir fry mix or a veg stock. You want to closely pack your mushrooms into the bottom of your jar, filling to approximately halfway. Take your Kombu and cut it into a suitable size, feel free to fold it over a couple times and you want to wedge it on top of those mushrooms already in the jar, tightly packing them down. Please see photo's on the left to demonstrate.

You’re now going to do the same filling the rest of the jar with the remaining mushrooms, packing them closely together until the jar is near enough full. Once again, take some Kombu, cut to size and fold over your mushrooms, we tend to tuck the sheets either around the mushrooms or up around the side of the jar. Simultaneously, you're compacting the mushrooms, as well as creating a seal to prevent oxygen getting to the mushrooms once submerged. 

When you’re at this stage you want to add around 5 tablespoons of Mirin to the jar, and simply empty that bottle of Shoyu on top. Give your mushrooms one final push down, pushing the top layer of Kombu with your knuckles. You want to ensure that every nook of the mushrooms is submerged, and you don’t have any hidden air bubbles. Seal your jar and invert the jar gently to give the Shoyu and Mirin a good mix. Then, pop your mushrooms somewhere cool and dark for around 7 days. After this, empty the jar, and use your mushrooms (popping any spare in some Tupperware). The lovely rich fluid can be poured back into the original Shoyu bottle, for use on anything you please. The fermented mushrooms will last in the Tupperware in the fridge for another week. 

Now, the best bit, how do you eat them? Well as these mushrooms originate from East Asia and they’re marinated in beautiful flavours from this region of the world, we tend to stick to this cuisine. They’re fantastic on a fresh Chinese style salad, with mandarin segments, cutting the earthiness of this ferment with the sharp citrus. We’ve topped ramensdishes with these umami beauties, and tucked them away into a pad thai noodle dish. For this batch we used them as the “pièce de resistance” of a Tofu Katsu Bowl (see below).