Category: Uncategorized

KREAM (Koji Rules Everything Around Me)

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Koji: aka Aspergillus oryzae aka Japan’s national fungus (yep!)
We recently had the good fortune of coming across some rice koji while doing a little bit of supermarket exploring (if you don’t do this, you should!).  I think it’s safe to say that we may be on the verge of a new obsession, but in our defense, here are some reasons why this is totally acceptable:

  1. 1. Fermentation pretty much always makes things awesome.  See examples: booze, bread, cheese….
  2. A couple of the basics that you can develop with koji are about as fantastic as they are simple to make.
  3. But most importantly, and most exciting to us — the possibilities!

Now that we have a taste (figuratively and literally) for what it can do, we have our sights set on getting some spores!  Koji-kin are the spores used to inoculate grains, and subsequently produce starters like koji rice.  Once we get our hands on some of that, we can start making koji wheat (and with that — naturally our own shoyu), koji barley, koji-“insert any grain you can think of here”, and experimenting with all kinds of different flavour combinations.

Paris: Day 6

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Alain Ducasse’s Chocolate Factory

Our third Patrick Roger Shop.

No trip is ever complete until I get a Michelin starred meal. 

Paris: Day 5

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We have arrived at The Chocolate Academy.

Getting a special private chocolate demo from MOF Serge Granger

Tasting time. 
At Or Noir Lab, they can develop your own brand of chocolate specific to your taste and only for your company.

Jean Jacques explaining where they source their beans.

Here you can start to develop your own preference by tasting the base line chocoolates from different regions of the world.
L’Eclair De Genie by Christophe Adam

Paris: Day 3/4 (An inside look at Patrick Roger’s Factory)

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On our third day of Paris, my good friends gave to me, a tour to Patrick Roger. 
(Now read it again in your head to 12 days of Christmas.)

Orange slices ready to be enrobed.

Some of these chocolates haven’t even hit the stores yet

A 50kg tempering machine just for Patrick to play around to make his sculptures

A picture with the man himself
An enrobing line. I need one of those for Shoko Chocolates.
He even produces his own honey for his chocolates

Bye for now.

Our second Patrick Roger shop.

Great Croissant. Voted 3rd best! 

We got lost looking for a cookbook store and ended up walking through the louvre.
Our dinner at Au Pied Du Cochon. Unfortunately, this restaurant is not as good as the one in Montreal.