Wild Plum + Chili Hot Sauce /// When exploring hot sauce variations for POPL last year, we fermented a batch of hot sauce using a plethora of chili varieties from a local farm. It was a highly complex mixture of hot and sweet chilis that was amplified by the acidity from lacto fermentation. Yesterday, we coincidentally received some wild plums and a bunch of chili varieties (including lemon drop, habaneros, cayenne and goats weed), so in a bit of an ‘aha’ moment, we decided to build on last year’s hot sauce by incorporating the complex acids from sour plums into this new fermentation. To start, we remove the pits and stems from both plums and chilis, weigh everything out, then portion 10% of the combined weight in with 10% sweet rice amazake. The high sugar content of amazake speeds up the fermentation process while adding balance to the sour mixture. We’ve added a roasted head of garlic and one white onion for additional flavor (160C until carmelised). All ingredients are blended with 5% salt, and aged with an airlock to lacto-ferment at 28C. After fermentation, we strain the solids from the hot sauce, then blend in plum vinegar and plum tamari for extra complexity and to layer in more plum flavor. This combination of lactic acid and plum acidity is sure to make your palate dance, and we’re already thinking of ways to use the sauce.

With game and forest season fast approaching, the R&D board in our lab is quickly filling with new ingredient trials. Today we’re creating two chestnut misos to test the flavor difference of roasted vs unroasted chestnuts. Our miso is made at 4% salt with low hydration, which is accomplished by decreasing cooking times for the ingredients. If we were to cook for longer, it would yield more thoroughly cooked ingredients, which equals more water in the batch. At 4% salt, the miso can easily sour if water activity is too high, so we adjust accordingly. We’ve separated our chestnuts into two portions, roasting one at 160C until unapologetically nutty to the nose and deep brown in color, and steaming the second portion at 100c. Cooking the chestnuts before fermentation will gelatinize the starch, allowing a pathway for koji enzymes to break down the nuts during aging, which results in more intense flavor in the fermentation process. In addition, we’ve added a small ratio of cooked peas to both trials for additional protein content. Enzymes work their magic on the composition of this base which results in two delicious by-products: sweetness from the starch and umami from the protein. After chestnuts and peas (in both trials) have been cooked to just tender, we grind and mix them homogeneously with barley koji. After, the total weight is calculated and we then add  4% salt. The resulting paste is packed into fermentation jars with ceramic weights and aged at 28C for 3 months. We are excited to taste these trials side-by-side and will update you soon!

Today in the Lab—Lacto fermented mirabelle plums We’re processing two types of plums today; one sour (yellow) and the other sweet (red). We begin by separating the sweet plums from the sour ones, then inspect and clean by removing any rotten plums or foreign objects such as leaves or stems. This is an essential step, as it can help prevent unwanted microbial activity in the batch. 👉Fermenting sweet and sour plums separately yields better consistency in the end; the yellow plums would be too tart if we fermented these as long as the red plums. Once placed in the bag, we add sea salt at 2% of the plum weight then shake gently to ensure the salt is distributed evenly. The bag is laid flat then sealed at full vacuum. The plums will ferment for 3 to 5 days, or until perfectly sweet and sour. We taste them periodically during the process, and once we’ve achieved the desired flavor, remove from our fermentation room (28C) and move to cold storage. #fermentation

Over the years we’ve grown Aspergillus on just about everything we could get our hands on, turning countless ingredients into koji. Much of this was very intentional, resulting in koji pancakes, egg yolk koji, and fuzzy vegetables. ⁣ Happy accidents are often the underdog in our fermentation lab, and these spontaneous ideas and combinations help us to develop long-lived techniques. One day, as we were grinding cooked peas and koji together for our miso, which are force-extruded into long noodle shapes, the idea hit us— “what if we carefully lay out the koji ‘noodles’, then return it to the incubator to see how it will continue growing?”⁣ ⁣ Typically we grow koji for 2 days, but in this instance we decided to age for one additional day in this new noodle shape. We were pleasantly surprised to see this fuzzy creation! During the extra time in our incubator the enzymes worked on the starch to soften & sweeten the formed rice. As an added bonus, it was very fuzzy and with a soft texture. This technique, though innocent in nature, can definitely open up new formats for our use of koji.   We look forward to applying this further.  🐛 #fermentation

Aging celtuce in shoyu moromi For this product, we are hoping to see if we can use the same process of aging ingredients like miso zuke in shoyu moromi, which can often yield an umami-rich pickling effect. The paste we’re using here is a byproduct of our fava and rice shoyu (the same shoyu used for @poplburger veggie burger ). After straining the shoyu we are left with the solids shown in the video, which would normally be discarded. In the past, we’ve successfully aged kohlrabi in a similar process, so we wanted to try here with celtuce. For this lacto fermentation preparation, we’ve taken celtuce that’s been peeled with all fibrous parts removed and each piece cut to fit the width of the jar. It’s packed in our fermentation jars, layering 2 part shoyu moromi to 1 part celtuce, and ceramic weights on the top layer to help push the water up. This limits the water activity and prevents unwanted microbial activity. We plan to age this for 2 weeks at 28c and taste the results.

We’re currently developing recipes using our first two garums (smoked mushroom and egg white garum) which include a caramelized onion tart (also vegan!), halloumi and barley wheat with pomegranate, and a vegetarian take on the classic carbonara. Our goal is to share how easy it is to use these garums, and to help inspire and create more delicious plant-based meals when you cook at home.

We are excited for the launch of Project 001 — our two vegetarian garums, later this year, and many of you may be asking “what is a garum?” Garums were originally fermented fish sauces made all around the Mediterranean basin. The tradition dates back thousands of years, and we’re extremely proud to carry the tradition forward. Our method of making garum is inspired by fish sauce fermentation, but instead of relying on the digestive process found inside animals, we use the enzymes provided by koji. At Noma, we use an environmental chamber that is held at a constant 60C, which we call the garum room. At this temperature other microbial processes are nonexistent, so all enzyme activity is focused on breaking down proteins into umami and starch into sugars. Because there is little or no microbial activity in our garum room, the salt content can be low or high without spoilage. We brew these garums in air-tight containers to prevent evaporation over time. For our smoked mushroom garum, we take clean mushrooms and blend with rice koji, sea salt and filtered water and age at 60C for 5 weeks. We then harvest the liquid after brewing, pour into shallow pans or containers, then place in a smoker with hay. The result is an umami-rich sauce that can be used as a versatile seasoning for all kinds of food—much like one might use soy sauce or fish sauce today. For almost two decades, we’ve been studying and employing the process of making garum using ingredients from our own backyard, in order to extract the deepest, most interesting flavors from both plant- and animal-based ingredients. What else would you like to know about garums?

To all of our @nomaferments fans, we are excited to share this channel as the new home of @nomaprojects. Noma Projects will be a behind the scenes of everything we’ve got going on at noma, from the umami-rich sauces of the fermentation lab to foraging initiatives and other exciting endeavors we are planning for the future–we hope you’ll follow along!

We’re so excited to announce Noma Projects and the launch of Project 001, noma’s line of garums, coming later this year. This is the culmination of 18 years of knowledge, craft and experimentation channeled into a new endeavor. To bring Project 001 to life, we collaborated with design agency @gretelnyc and one of our long-time favorite artists, @davidshrigley For first access to preorders and news on upcoming projects, visit the link in bio! Music: @stefanpasborg / Ibrahim Electric DOP: Mathias Nyholm Schmidt Editor: Rasmus Nyholm Schmidt

⁣Today in the lab we are testing new versions of gluten-free Pepper Tamari. For years Pepper Tamari has been a go-to powerhouse of flavor for the test kitchen during menu development, Typically we use rice miso to produce our gluten-free tamari. The sweetness from rice koji can be a great addition to the complexity of a tamari in most cases. We found that with Pepper Tamari, the natural sweetness of red pepper juice can take the sugar content of the finished product a bit over the edge, so we decided to rethink this process to increase the savoriness. ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ In this trial we decided to remove rice koji from the recipe altogether and replaced it with toasted buckwheat and yellow peas. Inspired by traditional tamari production, we grew aspergillus directly on balls made from the legume and buckwheat mixture. The koji and red pepper juice were combined with a 4% salt brine to 77% hydration and aged at 60c. We are excited to see how the flavors develop over time with these adjustments. #fermentation #nomaferments

Beehive Tea Kombucha⁣ ⁣ Inspired by the bees´ path to the hive, we intended to brew a kombucha with some of the flowers blooming in our garden.⁣ ⁣ After making a tea from beeswax, pollen and fresh mirabelle flowers, we infused it with last years´ preserved meadowsweet to capture the characteristic almond-marzipan flavor emanated from the plants. The air dried nature of meadowsweet contributed heavier flavor molecules while the fresh mirabelles added sweet and light notes. We used an ethanol extraction of Marigold for its deep, floral aroma and wrapped up this complex bouquet of flavors with a spray of essential oil made of beeswax. To sweeten the kombucha, we substituted conventional white sugar with aged honey from our hives. ⁣ ⁣ Based off previous experiments with wax-lined vessels, we coated our fermentation jar with melted beeswax. The idea here was to allow the acetic acid produced during the kombucha fermentation to pull out the flavour compounds found in the beeswax as it ages. This step not only allowed to us to enrich the fermenting liquid with the warm fragrance of wax but also to add another key element of the bees’ lifecycle into our kombucha. ⁣ ⁣ Just as the flavour extractions presented here encapsulate different moments of the the bees journey to the hive, we imagine our kombucha to reflect their sensorial journey to their home and ultimately convey the beauty of the season.⁣ #fermentation ⁣

We’re now well into spring, the lab is buzzing with creativity and the team is back experimenting.⁣ ⁣ To celebrate the bright and sunny season, we decided to retrace the story of honey and fully disclose its natural flavors starting with pollen. ⁣ ⁣ For about 1 and half minutes, we used the power of our ultrasonic extraction machine to brew a citrusy, floral pollen tea. We then centrifuged the golden liquid, strained it through a fine fishnet and seasoned it with a touch of essential oil made from beeswax and a drop of our gardens´ honey. ⁣ ⁣ The result is our own interpretation of the surrounding environment and the bright expression of nature’s awakening. ⁣