Natto

Natto

What it is

The threads are polyglutamic acid, spun by Bacillus subtilis, a bacterium that lives on rice straw — hence the story that natto was found by accident in boiled beans packed in straw bales. Sake and miso brewers still refuse to eat it before entering the fermentation room: the bacterium travels on skin and clothes, and it overruns koji.

In the kitchen

Beat the beans on their own thirty or fifty times before the mustard and the tare go in — liquid added first stops the threads forming. Over rice just off the boil, never scalding.

Goes with

Rice Karashi (Japanese mustard) Negi Soy sauce Egg Nori Kimchi

Same species

Cheonggukjang

Also used with

Gagome kombu Mekabu

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