Shio Koji Seasoned Meatballs

We’ve finally returned to tinkering with shio koji in ground meat applications beyond the burger. I set about making meatballs with pork, beef, and veal. We added 1% shio koji, eggs, and Parmigiano Reggiano. We refrigerated the mix overnight. We shaped the meatballs the following afternoon. I roasted them at 425°F for 30 minutes. When they were cool enough to handle and still ripping hot, we dug in. The shio koji enhanced and deepened the browning in the meatballs. They were savory, rich, and tasted of shio koji, which I consider an overall flaw. The goal is to make something more delicious, not make it taste like what you seasoned it with. For this trial, we used our temaki gold shio koji. We cooled the meatballs and then looked at them as a potential flavor enhancer themselves. We combined crushed tomatoes, white wine, and a bit of cooked tomato sauce in a pot. We added the meatballs and let them simmer for hours. The meatballs and the sauce shared flavors, each improving in the process. Cooking with shio koji is a learning process, creative tinkering.