Healthy fermented foods (4) - Amazake nicknamed “drinkable IV shot”

Amazake literally means sweet sake, but it is a low or non-alcohol fermented rice drink. You can drink hot amazake at some sightseeing spots and events, and it tastes especially good in winter. However, cold amazake is available at any supermarkets all year round. It is often packed in a bag, but some products are packed in cartons. This one is available in Seijo Ishii in the basement of the station building.

Amazake has two types with different ingredients. This non-alcohol type is made from rice, rice malt, and salt. Though it doesn’t contain sugar, it is sweet. It is high in nutrition containing vitamins B1, B2, B6, folic acid, fiber, oligosaccharide, essential amino acids, glucose, etc. and is called drinkable IV shot. I heard people used to drink amazake to prevent summer heat fatigue during the Edo period. Nowadays amazake is often considered to be a drink in winter, and I seldom drink it in summer. But I found this amazake delicious whether it is cold or warm. Maybe I’ll continue to drink it even in summer.

The other type of amazake is made from sake lees, sugar, and salt. So, it contains a little alcohol. Though you can drink this type in some events at a reasonable price, you can make it easily by melting sake lees in hot water and adding some sugar and a little salt. This type of amazake warms you up in winter.

Amazake can be used also for cooking. The other day, I mixed it with miso with a ratio of 1:1 to make sauce. Miso is paste made from fermented soybeans, to which rice or barley is added sometimes. Different regions have different kinds of miso, and this time I used one from Niigata Prefecture famous for its rice cultivation. It contained soybeans, rice, salt, and alcohol. It smelled nice and was salty. Even after mixed with amazake, it didn’t become very sweet.

Then, I soaked a piece of tempeh or fermented soybeans into it.

After grilling, I ate it with German rye bread and sauerkraut. This open sandwich has four kinds of fermented foods: sauerkraut, tempeh, amazake, and miso.

I found this combination was not so good as I had expected because the bread, sauerkraut, and sauce had a distinctive taste respectively. It’s better to eat the tempeh separately. However, the sauce matched the grilled tempeh, and it may be suitable for many other foods with a mild taste.