Natto ! Natto ! Natto! [General]

2009 Aug 28
I tried natto for the first time last week and I truly loved it right away. I got at at the New 168 Market on Somerset. The natto came in a styrofoam box with some hot Dijon mustard and soy sauce included.

It's one of my favorite foods and easily the most addictive one. I go to bed looking forward to having some more the next morning.

I also tried to make some and it came out pretty good, but I'd like to make it even stringier if anyone has tips on how to increase stringiness.

For my current batch, the second, I'm using red adzuki beans and the fermentation substrate.

Anyone know good natto recipes? I think it would go great in an omelet or as a french crepe filling.


2009 Aug 28
You just reminded me of something...

Natto?! The hard gay word!

Watch for Japanese game show hilarity.

2009 Aug 28
Francis: This site is very helpful
www.gaia21.net/natto/natto.htm
When you add natto to cooked soy beans, make sure you add natto while soy beans are hot.

When you eat natto, you have to mix it really well, at least 100 times, (better remove natto from styrofoam box, it breaks easily while you are mixing it)
natto become stringier and tastier...then,you add soy sauce.
I like natto on rice. usually chop some green onion and sprincle some dried bonito frakes.

Chimichimi: Oh god! I had no idea ppl here know about HG...lol
That's my home town.

2009 Aug 29
LOL Chimi, hadn't seen that episode ... and now i can't look at Natto in the same way.

Also wondering if i should have been viewing that through some sort of anonymizer service?

2009 Aug 29
Itchy - anonymizer? I guess I should have included a NSFW warning, my bad!

2009 Aug 29
LOL... that show is nuts!

Francis, your comments make me much more willing to try natto. I've been sort of scared of it but now I'm interested again!

2009 Aug 29
Fresh Foodie: I didn't like natto when I was a kid. If you like stinky cheese,
you will enjoy natto. I like natto toast and natto pasta.
Photo is natto vending machine!

2009 Aug 29
That show is pretty wierd . . . but I don't watch TV much. :-)

My kids and wife won't even try it, even though my kids are anime fanatics and the anime characters often eat natto. You will find three brands of soy natto at New 168 Market and some red bean natto too (I haven't tried it yet). The three brands are the same price. Two of them give you three packages of 50g each for $3.29 and the other one three packages of 40g each for the same price. The natto comes with tiny packets of Dijon mustard and soy sauce. I like the taste of the finished natto from the 40g packs the best.

After I made my own natto I went looking for Dijon mustard to match the taste. I tried plain Dijon, Dijon Horseradish, Hot Dijon Mustard ,and Fine and Strong Dijon mustard. The Fine and Strong Dijon came pretty close to the taste of the 40g packs. I use Kikkoman Soy Sauce, because that is what I have in the house. It saltier than the one that comes with the commercial natto but it still comes out fine.

I've found out a few more things now that I'm a natto fanatic:

1. There are special wooden implements for stirring natto to make it stringier.
2. The natto bacterium likes barley and malt, just like beer making bacteria does. I'm going to try a batch of 60/40 soy and barley next time. Supposedly adding barley makes it very stringy. :-)
3. Add malt or sucrose to the batch (boil it and cool it a bit) for good fermentation.

I don't really like strong cheese; but I have enjoyed blue cheese in the past. But noting like I enjoy natto. It must have some opiates in there I think . . .

I store it in the freezer and defrost some overnight in the fridge before eating. I eat it cold. Perhaps that's why I don't find it smelly. I has a strong smell while incubating though, but not an entirely unpleasant one . . . instead of strong cheese, it reminds me of brewing a strongly flavored beer, like Guinness.

Natto is very healthy to eat: combats cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, and hair loss (not kidding, google it).

About 25% of the soy crop in Japan is made into natto!

2009 Aug 29
Try Karashi mustard for natto. Little soy sauce come with natto is not just soy sauce, it contains fish broth (dashi), it is called Dashi- shoyu.
Win Tai Market sells many types of natto cheaper. I think there are more than 10 kinds.(1137 Ogilvie Road)

2009 Aug 29
Dashi soy sauce is something like this. You can use it for natto, tempra, udon and soba noodle, stir fry...etc etc.

2009 Aug 29
Thanks Aisu Kurimu! I think the kinds of natto I tried from the 168 were all the same actually - the natto part that is - but the condiments were different. I have some Vietnamese fish sauce handy. I can try it with that tomorrow. I didn't order the special natto stirrer. I just use pointy chopsticks held a little apart for stirring. I must be crazy, but I like it so much I use a piece of bread to get every bit of the natto from the dish.

I'll visit the Win Tai tomorrow. I'd really like to find some black soybeans, as supposedly that makes the most expensive, premium natto sold in Japan. I'll try the Karashi mustard too. My wife did ask why I bought so many mustards :-) The strong and fine one was the best so far, and it's one of the cheapest, only $2.30 for a large jar.

2009 Aug 29
Another fermented food I'd like to try is goat milk Kefir. It's supposed to by yummy and given the good luck I've had with natto . . .

On the topic of Japanese foods . . . I tried Konnyaku this month for the first time too. With the dumpling hot sauce recommended by Ashley and some soy it's pretty good and very low in calories (almost zero in fact). It's pure soluble fiber. About half of it gets metabolized by gut bacteria into butaric acid or acetic acid (vinegar), but these byproducts are very low in calories too. Yet Konnyaku is filling.


2009 Aug 29
I have tried black soy bean natto from win tai. It was bit bitter than regular natto, yet it was very tasty.

You don't need any special tool to mix natto. I usually put natto into a small bowl and use spoon or chopsticks to mix natto.

My Canadian husband lived 8 years in Japan. However, he dooesn't like natto...too bad.

Natto salad recipe

1 pack natto and little soy and masterd
sticks of imitation crab meat
lettuce, cucumber, corn,
mayo,salt,pepper

mix everything. eat :)

Natto goes well with cheese and mayo.

2009 Aug 30
Aisu has your husband tried it? Or like my wife and kids is avoiding it on principle? My teenage daughter said "I won't eat spoiled beans". I said "but you eat spoiled milk don't you?" (yogurt and cheese). I won that one, but she still won't try it. :-)

But you know I stand by my assessment that it is more like brewing beer (if you've ever toured a brewery) than strong cheese. And in researching this food I found that people interested in maximizing natto enzyme production have found the bacteria really prefers (1) soy protein (2) yeast extract (3) maltose.

I looked up how malted barley is made, but that's way too much work for me. You have to soak barley grains, then germinate them, then dry them and remove the rootlets. Then you end up with malted barley a couple of weeks and lots and lots of work later.

But natto can also use sucrose and glucose, though not as well at maltose, so I can just add regular table sugar to the starter mix.

2009 Aug 30
These are the soy nattos I got at New 168 Market. My fav is the bottom one. I think the differences are in the condiments.

2009 Aug 30
Well I just came back from Win Tai, and yes, they have lots of brands of natto. I can't read Japanese and didn't know which ones to try, until I saw the "grandma" brand, which features prominently on some natto discussion threads, so I bought some.

2009 Aug 30
Francis: Oh wow, you know so much about natto!

My husband tried natto, he said taste itself was okay,but he didn't like the texture...
I deep fry natto in springroll shell. Mix natto with mashed potato or ground meet, I make something like samosa.

I like konnyaku too. stir fry it with soy sauce or oyster sauce and chili pepper.

2009 Aug 30
Mid size soy bean, bonito and konbu broth in soy sauce. It seems this product was made in Akita, Akita region is famous for high quality rice farming.

2009 Aug 30
Hi Aisu,

Maybe one day the world will love natto as much as I do. Soy is the perfect protein (it takes 70x as much energy to make an equivalent amount of beef protein) and natto is even better than ordinary soy, in so many ways!

I just started a topic on Foodie books, because there are a lot of really good books in the Chapters bargain bins recently. Almost every time I go, I find a couple that are a really good read. The latest one I've discovered is "The sushi economy":

A lot of planes from Japan were delivering electronics to Canada and flying back empty, so the search was on to find something to bring back to Japan. One day they wondered if tuna were available in Canada. A local employee found that they were plentiful, but after sport fishermen photographed their catches, a bulldozer dug a hole and it was buried.

The Japanese came and tried to convince local fishermen that they should fast freeze their catches and fly them back to Japan, but at first all they got were puzzled looks and the standard, "but who would want to eat such a thing?"

Well, eventually it all worked out and these fish, later dubbed "Boston" Bluefin, sold for $3500 at auction in Japan.


2009 Aug 30
The next time there is an ottawa foodie event, if I can make it, I will bring a batch of my best homemade natto . . . :-)

2009 Aug 30
haha Francis, i never thought i'd read a thread so thoroughly infected by natto-fever here on OF ... i might be catching the bug, too, esp. w/ Aisu's descriptions on mixing and matching it up w/ other ingredients.

And, since there's one in your avatar, i though i'd mention that one of the sites Aisu lists suggests that dogs, too, can benefit from a bit of natto.

2009 Aug 30
Yes, I heard they put it in pet food. Actually the dog in my avatar we gave away (we have two) and that one was very smart and very naughty. He chewed up everything then when you caught him he tried to pretend it wasn't him or played cute. The kids cried so much when we gave him away . . . but that was two years ago now. Sob! I liked him too, but with three kids and another dog (an older and quieter smooth collie) too, it was just too busy with buddy (that's what the kids named him) in the house. And if we put him in the back yard he dug it up and barked at everything. We put up an invisible pet fence so he could run around as much as he wanted and he found the wire and chewed through it! Smart, too smart . . .

I wonder if natto is good for arthritis. Our other dog is 8 years now and she walks very tentatively when she gets up in the morning.

I'll let you guys know how natto crepes turn out. My wife is from Britanny and they know how to make nice crepes there! We also have a professional crepe surface sent over from France. Now I just have to convince her to put some natto on one . . .

2009 Aug 30
I happened to find myself near Win Tai this afternoon, so I popped in and bought the natto pictured here. I chose this one because it said "good" on the label. ;-)

I tried some without the sauce and mustard and then some with. I preferred the flavour with the sauces but the texture became so snotty that I couldn't eat it. Really, it looks like a nest of alien eggs from a horror movie! And the sticky hair-like strands flail around and glue themselves to your chin.

The flavour was surprisingly mild, slightly beer-like and tangy. Not really pleasant for me, but not terrible either. It's the texture that turned me away. Will it grow on me? Will I like it more the next time I try it? :-O

2009 Aug 30
FF, it might not! I've eaten it off/on for a couple years, but i can't say its really grown on me.

I am somewhat influenced by enthusiasm, though, and am making mental notes to try it in different ways.

For many (most?), Natto seems to invoke love / hate responses: Francis clearly belongs to one camp, the kid from HG in the other.

One thing i've found, a bit of a cultural stereotype Aisu can corroborate or correct: the topic of natto is an ice-breaker w/ (many) Japanese people. If you're short on conversation, start talking natto, describing which brands you tried or liked ... and voila, conversation void is filled. It truly is a superfood.

2009 Aug 30
Fresh Foodie, there is only one way to know if you will come to like natto's texture - you have to keep eating it. Here is a blog of people who set out to do just that: thenattoproject.com/

I don't know why I fell so hard for natto . . . I do love food, but this was different. There's lots of glutamic acid in natto (MSG - monosodium glutamate is an artificial salt of glutamic acid); the naturally produced glutamic acids apparently do not produce any of the side effects of MSG. There are special taste buds for glutamic acid in the mouth. But I do use soy sauce and oyster sauce and such regularly, so it's not like I've never experienced the taste of glutamic acid before.

Humm . . . perhaps I have a special gene for natto addiction. Just like my wife is one of those people with a gene that makes coriander smell and taste like stinky socks, instead of leamony. Bad luck for me! I love fresh coriander, but can't even bring it into the house. And she doesn't like eating at Chinese restaurants either, because she can detect very even subtle smells of coriander. Oh well. None of my kids got the gene so we go to Chinese restaurants without her!

I hate to admit it, but I've eaten the equivalent of six boxes of the stuff (aka natto) today. I brewed up a large amount myself. This morning I had the equivalent of three packs for breakfast (not on rice, by itself, with mustard, soy sauce and fish sauce). At suppertime I had a similar serving mixed with Vietnamese vermicelli and ratatouille.

I can honestly say that at the moment I'm not craving natto (though neither am I repulsed by the thought of having it again, sometime, like tomorrow), so 300g seems to be my daily limit.

p.s. I offered my 12 year old $40 to eat a tablespoonful - she hesitated, but declined.

2009 Aug 30
Fresh Foodie: The label says "Good for women, full of good nutrients especially for women's health"
Well, I admit I didn't like natto until I got pregnant 10 years ago. I needed to have healthy diet without gaining weight, doctor told me gain no more than 6 kg/13 pounds.( I weighted around 105 pounds!!!) It was very strict order.
I don't like natto's texture so much. To eat natto less mess, I usually make hand rolled sushi. Just cook rice, and wrap rice and natto with nori.

Itchy feet: I think the texture scares many people away! Even many Japanese ppl dislike natto. HG's hard work doesn't help.( by the way, he is not gay, he has wife!) I need to wash my face after I eat natto, because strings get on my face and it smells bad!! :( it smells just like dirty socks on my chin...lol

Francis:You are officially Natto Guy!! if you love natto so much, try Esrom cheese. It has very powerful smell, but sooooo tasty.
My Chinese-Canadian friend loves natto just like you. He eats 3 packs/day.
He keeps freezer full of natto...

2009 Aug 30
So fresh foodie, you bought the girl's natto ! :-)

When I was doing my M.A.Sc one of my friends went over to Japan to do his. He bought a cool black kimono to wear around the student dorm. All the other students were wearing them, so he wondered why they often giggled when they saw him, perhaps because he was a white guy. Actually about a year later, just before he left Japan, someone told him he was wearing a girl's kimono. :-)

p.s. Aisu, I missed a zero on the tuna price. It sold for $35,000. Ok, I'm natto guy ! As Nietzsche says, we must make our weaknesses our strengths.

pp.s. HG was too over the top. It had to be a caricature.

2009 Aug 30
LOL at Nietzsche, natto and HG channeled into a single thread.

2009 Aug 30
btw, you asked about recipe ideas. perhaps less practical than Aisu's, but have you watched the Iron Chef episode?


2009 Aug 31
LOL...in my head, natto+HG+Nietzsche=Francis.
Chaotic!! I am lost in translation.
From now on, every time I eat natto, I think of you, Francis!!! :)


2009 Aug 31
LOL. That's funny. I'm nothing like either Nietzsche or HG.

Itchy feet, I started watching the IChef episode, but it 3/4 through and they haven't gotten around to the natto yet!

2009 Aug 31
oops, should have suggested skipping through the 1st (of the 5) videos. Most of the pageantry / show opening is in the first segment, which sets up the contest, etc., but that might be not necessary for your needs.

2009 Sep 4
I found a patent online for making yogurt using natto. You can use regular milk or soy milk.

Using regular milk (incubation 25C for 6 hours) the final product was much like yogurt, but a bit more bitter and a bit less sour.

Using soy milk the final product was neither bitter nor sour, and not as thick as regular yogurt (so perhaps a good drinkable yogurt, similar to YOP or Danone).

The advantage of using the natto bacteria are the health benefits, plus the bacteria's ability to serve as a probiotic.

Natto Guy is going to give it a try !

It should be even easier to make than regular natto (no soaking of beans or pressure cooking) - just add some commercial natto to soy milk, mix, and keep in a warm place for 6 - 12 hours.


2009 Sep 12
I was at New 168 Market today, to pick up more of the spicy dumpling sauce Ashley recommended (she's right, it's awesome) and I noticed they have 6 or 7 different kinds of natto now . . . so perhaps natto is becoming more popular!

Here are the results of my natto experiments so far:

1. Red adzuki bean natto - doesn't look yummy, and even stickier than regular natto. I was going to toss it out, but then I tried it, and it's good. It doesn't have the strong natto taste that I really love and other people really hate; it's tastes something like red bean paste, but less sweet since there is no sugar. Addition of sugar or stevia would make it a lot like red bean paste, and very healthy to eat.

2. Soy milk natto yogurt - this fermented fine in a thermos, but did not get as thick as regular yogurt and smelled sour and unappetizing. It tasted better than it smelled, but still kind of a "beany". I was going to throw it out, but I discovered my dog likes natto and it seems to temporarily cure her stiff joints. So I poured the natto yogurt in a bowl for her and she finished it off to the last drop. Still, I won't be making this again.

Soon my stock of natto will dwindle enough that I can make another batch of each (regular soybean natto and the adzuki natto). I plan on adding some barley and some malt to the beans. I'll post the results.


2009 Sep 12
Wow, francis, you have been busy making natto!! I love adzuki beans, so I will try to make adzuki natto

Soy milk natto yogurt... what a name!!
Do you use malt syrup for making natto? Do you know where I can buy it?
I need to use it for baking baguettes.

2009 Sep 13
taking notes here, Francis...

2009 Sep 13
Hi Aisu,

I bought the barley malt at a health food store on the Quebec side called "La Boite à Grains" www.laboiteagrains.com/

It was kind of pricey ($11 for the bottle), but I'm only going to use a tablespoon or so of it per batch of natto (about 4 pyrex baking trays worth).

The "soy milk natto yogurt" was just some fresh soy milk from Loblaws, warmed up and put into a thermos, then inoculated with some commercial natto as a starter. It did ferment nicely, but I did not really like it. :-(

My goat milk kefir turned out well though, as did my strawberry soy milk kefir.

2009 Sep 14
Fermented foods page from www.chow.com

www.chow.com/stories/11565


2009 Sep 14
Barley malt? Wha!? OK, I haven't been following this thread AT ALL, but now you have my attention!

If you don't need organic, you'll get much cheaper barley malt at a home brew store. Any good one should have unhoppy malt extract. What you have is technically not "barley malt" (even if it says it is), it is "barley malt extract"

OK, now I have to go back and read up on just what is "Natto"

2009 Sep 14
Zym - I recommend you start with my youtube link.

2009 Sep 14
Hi Zym,

What's the difference between barley malt and barley malt extract?

Actually what I wanted was maltose . . . is that what I got?

2009 Sep 15
Hi Zym / Aisu,

I brought back the organic barley malt and went to a beer brewing store on Gladstone, near Preston. I got some light malt crystals for $5.39 and some malto dextrin for $1.75. Both are in solid form, crystals. I'll add a bit of both to my natto and see how that works out. I'm thinking I could just use the malto dextrin. The clerk told me yeast can't digest it, but it's caloric for people. Probably the natto bacteria can digest it.


2009 Sep 15
What are you referring to as "malt crystals"? Do you mean "crystal malt"? Is it a grain? I don't think that store carries dried malt extract so it cannot be that. Or maybe they do now.

BTW, I would not listen to too much advice from that store. They really know their wine well, but beer not so much.

Malto-dextrin is really long chain carbohydrates, and probably does not come from barley malt. en.wikipedia.org

2009 Sep 15
Whoops, just noticed the question about barley malt vs barley malt extract.

Barley malt is a grain. It has been malted - i.e. soaked in water and germinated to a specific point. This activates enzymes in the grain and breaks down really long starches into shorter ones. Then it gets kilned / dried.

The brewer then takes this and soaks it in water again to reactive the enzymes in it. It gets soaked again at a specific temp for a given length of time to do the final conversion of those now shorter starches into sugars that the yeast can eat. Then the liquid is drained out and the grain left behind, and more water is added to rinse more sugars out of the grains. sugarly liquid you collect is malt extract.

What you bought was concentrated malt extract. The liquid is boiled down to reduce the volume significantly, making a very thick syrup like molasses.

After all you've gone through, I still do not think you've gotten your maltose. I'd have to go back and do some reading but I'm pretty sure that while malt extract has a lot of maltose, it has a combination of various sugars of various lengths. the "length" of a sugar / starch is how many molecules are stuck together. typically yeast can only eat sugars that are 1 and 2 molecules long, though a few can handle 3. Maltose has 2 molecules together.

2009 Sep 15
Hi Zym,

This is what I got . . . both are supposed to be sweet.

After I came home with the maltodextrin I did a google search and found a patent for culturing the natto enzyme in vats on a substrate of maltodextrin. So maybe it's a good food source for the natto.

Natto, BTW, tastes a bit like brewing beer.

2009 Sep 15
Hi Zym, Wow, you know so much about malt. I am a baking student and I have to study about malt in baking theory class sometime soon...I have read your post and my text book, but I am still confused...lol...I am hopeless.

Francis, Thank you for uploading pics!
>>What's the difference between barley malt and barley malt extract?
Actually what I wanted was maltose . . . is that what I got?

I will ask my baking teachers about your question on Thursday. They might know.

2009 Sep 16
OK, your bag on the right is dry malt extract, sometimes called "spray malt". This is produced from malt extract in a different manner from the liquid stuff that gets reduced in a boil. It gets sprayed dry, as one of the names suggest. They are both essentially the same though one in liquid form and the other in powder.

2009 Sep 16
Hey natto fans !

For variety I had natto this morning with a bit of mayo and peanut butter. Quite interesting. You could make a good sandwich spread with it.

2009 Oct 2
It's time for more natto news . . . :-)

blogs.houstonpress.com

Jeff Timpanaro says:

I will not eat it in a house.
I will not eat it with a mouse.
I will not eat in here or there.
I will not eat it anywhere!

2009 Oct 8
Barley Natto Experiment:

I brewed up some barley natto. Just like regular natto, but I used malt with the innoculant and I added cooked pot barley to the mix afterward.

At first I thought the experiment was a failure. The barley was very sticky, more so than sushi rice, even before I mixed it in, giving the mix a consistency similar to bread pudding. I didn't think it would become homogeneous at all and the barley tended to form large clumps and stuck to the stirring spoon.

But 10 hours later the barley seems to be breaking down into viscous threads. The mixture is easily mixable and with some stirring it's becoming uniform: soybeans surrounded by thick viscous, slippery threads. It doesn't have as strong a smell as regular natto. I read somewhere the ammonia scent is only produced when the bacteria run out of sugar, and they have plenty of that from the malt and from the barley I suppose.

Still another 20 hours to go, but already a lot sticker - almost like very thick, cooked oatmeal.

Looking forward to trying it.

2009 Oct 18
I tried the barley natto today - yuck - tastes like yak puke. :-) Don't try it. I gave it to my dog (she actually likes it, and it seems to cure her arthritis too). Oh well, it did not go to waste. I will make a batch of the regular stuff tomorrow, which I still love.

2009 Oct 18
Francis, How do you know what the yak puke taste like!!
(Don't tell me you have tried it before...)

I would like to try your homemade natto someday :)
Some Japanese pastry chefs use natto for making pastry.
Since I am not that creative, I have never tried to make natto cake, and I don't think I will...

2009 Oct 19
That's what my kids said: "How do you know what yak puke tastes like?"

I did make some red bean natto previously, and I think this would go very well in a pastry. It doesn't really have the strong natto taste. Hard to describe, but sweet-ish, even without sugar.

p.s. We went for a walk at Meech Lake on the weekend and we brought our dog. She was running around like a puppy and my wife said "her arthritis is gone !" (my wife is a natto skeptic, she's never even tried it). Indeed it is, could it be the barley natto

p.s. Our dog is 7 years old, a smooth collie.

2009 Oct 20
Bridging "what i ate last" w/ this thread, here's a quick and (imo) tasty recipe natto-pasta dish adapted from a friend's recipe.

1. saute some garlic
2. toss in mushrooms (king oysters and shimeji)
3. add some sake & soy sauce
4. next, some wakame.
5. add a scoop of water from the pasta's cooking water
6. then, the magic ingredient: NATTO! :-)
7. toss in your (cooked) pasta.
8. add some garnishes, esp. green onions.
9. stir it all up and toss on plates.

The natto, imo, can serve as an "unidentifiable" cheese, good for lactose intolerant or vegans: a bit pungent (good pungent), tiny bit stringy and w/ some good nuttiness. Cooking it like this really neutralizes the taste of the natto and you might fool your kids, Francis. Well, that was my impression, but mileage will vary esp. where kids are involved.

2009 Oct 20
Hi Itchy,

I forgot to mention that my kids also find mushrooms abhorrent. I had a pretty good time in September collecting some in the woods, but I was the only one to eat them (I only ate ones that were positively identified and not easy to confuse - I even took the spore prints for identification).

Aisu, have you made a natto dessert yet? All great chefs create new dishes . . . :-)

I'll post a picture of my latest batch of natto tomorrow. Yes, you can try some. Can I try some of your natto dessert?


2009 Oct 28
Korean fermented soybeans declared to be perfect food for health:

english.chosun.com

I've never tried them. I can fix that . . .:-)

2010 Feb 5
Natto doughnuts:

www.cnngo.com

2010 Dec 17
I am off to Chinatown this weekend and would like to take the plunge and try natto. I have never tried it to date so I appreciate the pictures of the boxes above - it will help me in knowing what to look for. However I'm wondering what part of the store it would be kept in. The refrigerated section? Somewhere else? Can any natto fans can advise me where to look?

2010 Dec 17
It's in the freezer section. Kowloon Market has it. So does New 168 Market. There are different brands. The differences are in the mustard and fish sauce packets that come with the natto.

Actually most of the time I have natto now, it's with peanut butter and Vietnamese fish sauce. This makes for a gooey concoction !

2010 Dec 18
To add one small detail, you buy it frozen as Francis notes, but if you're consuming it over the weekend (or coming week), put it in your fridge to thaw. Its shipped frozen, but should be thawed for consumption. Happy plunging!

2011 Jan 3
The natto verdict is now in. Thanks Francis for pointing me to the right part of the store and to itchy feet for reminding me to thaw it in the fridge first. I bought some natto at Kowloon in all red packaging shown in one of Francis pictures above. It was the only kind they had in the store on the day I visited. I followed Aisu Kurimu's advice and stirred it in a regular bowl, I added the hot mustard and stirred again, then added soy sauce and stirred some more. The verdict? I like it! I'm not sure how stinky it is because I am really stuffed up with a cold and I can't smell anything right now... I do however look forward to much more natto in my future.

2011 Jan 3
Pasta lover: I am glad you enjoyed natto... I don't mind the smell, it's better than stinky cheese. However natto strings smell really bad when it dried...strings get on your face, fingers, table while you are eating natto.
I take shower or wash my face after I eat natto.

Personally, I don't like the slimy texture of natto in my mouth. Can you imagine Okura and Natto mix? (many ppl love it!!)

2011 Mar 17
Hey, welcome to the club ! I make it in batches myself now, using a package of the commercial natto as a starter.

I think I like it best mixed with peanut butter and Vietnamese fish sauce.


2011 Mar 17
My perfect breakfast. Often I use a raw egg, but this was made for a Daring Cooks poached egg challenge. This is a natto bowl and spoon, for making it extra stringy.
:)


2011 Mar 20
Natto is just loaded with unique health benefits too !

2011 Mar 21
Francis I have in fact been bitten by the natto bug. I am now getting cravings ironically as this thread was bumped up-;) Thankfully I live close to Chinatown so I can satisfy my cravings easily. Fermented foods (of which natto is one) are definitely loaded with health benefits. And peanut butter and natto sounds like an awesome combination.

Travelicious That picture looks sooooo good! Are those black seseame seeds on top of the egg?

2011 Mar 21
Yes, Pasta Lover, they are black sesame seeds. I do like natto with sesame oil, so now I'm wondering about tahini, since I haven't got any peanut butter.

2011 Mar 25
Hi Pasta Lover,

If you have the natto bug, buying it can add up . . . and it's not at all difficult to make. But you do need a pressure cooker to steam the beans.

2011 Mar 28
Thanks for the natto making tips Francis I was wondering how it was made... I do not have a pressure cooker though so I guess I will have to make do with buying natto in Chinatown.

2011 Mar 29
Travelicious: your picture looks great...I am hungry now. Do you use soy sauce for your natto breakfast? Sesame oil is a wonderful thing!

2011 Mar 29
Hi Pasta Lover,

Soak soybeans overnight. Steam them in a pressure cooker for 30 min. Use some commercial natto mixed with sugared water as an innoculant / starter (add it to the cooked beans while they are still hot).

I put it all into pyrex dishes to maximize the surface area, and these go into a picnic cooler for 36 hours. After that, it all goes into freezer bags to age in the fridge for a week, and after that, into the freezer until I need it.

I make about 2 kg each batch.

An improvement is to use malt instead of sugar with the innoculant.

2011 Mar 29
Aisu,

I usually just use the seasoned soy that comes with the natto, Sometimes adding more if I want it more liquidy. I am craving natto now too. I don't pick it up as often now that New 168 market has closed.

2011 Apr 2
New 168 has closed ! :-( I liked that place. Closed or moved? T&T to "blame"?

2011 Apr 2
The lease came up and they decided not to renew it because it was increasing too much.

2012 Sep 21
I have a question for Francis the Natto Guy! I've tried making natto 3-4 times, and it is never stringy enough and has too much ammonia taste. I can't figure out from this thread which "malt" you ended up using/preferring: malted barley syrup, maltodextrin, or the malt crystals? Also, I've been using a recipe that calls for a 1/4 t salt, which it says increases stickiness. Do you use salt? I've read some other places that salt decreases stickiness. I guess my next attempt I will leave out the salt, but would also like to know what kind of malt to try. I was going to try the adzuki beans, but then I saw where you found them to be such a different flavor, more suited for pastry. So I think I maybe won't try that. I"m also going to poke even more holes in the foil covering to increase air circulation and decrease the ammonia. If you've come up with any more tips in the last year and a half, I'd love to hear them!

2012 Sep 21
also, natto guy, do you use brewer's yeast?

2012 Dec 6
@aldaigle, I haven't been on ottawafoodies too much lately, so I missed your query.

My natto doesn't have too much ammonia taste. Some Japanese people who tried it gave it rave reviews too :-) I use brown sugar and malt crystals in the starter mix which I pour all over the trays of soybeans. Lately I've been adding about 20% small red beans to the soybeans and cooking them all together.

I don't add any salt or brewer's yeast.

2013 Jan 20
Thanks Francis, I will get some malt crystals. I haven't made another attempt at natto for several months. Hope this next batch is the one that works! :)