Noma Projects Smoked Mushroom Garum
Acclaimed Copenhagen restaurant Noma has again set a new culinary standard with the release of Project 001—the street name for its bottled sauce of smoked mushroom garum. Home-cooked meals mimicking Michelin-star experiences just became easier now that the fivetime number-one champion (and current titleholder) of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list is providing domestic chefs with an essential umami aid.
Noma’s signature is its scientific approach to menu curation and recipe creation, reinterpreting and breathing new life into outdated techniques and ingredients not commonly used today. Owner and chef René Redzepi describes Noma’s kitchen as a lab, where his staff can explore, experiment and discover a new panoply of flavors. This is how Project 001 came to fruition.
The smoked mushroom garum is a modernized version of an ancient Roman recipe. Garums are traditionally fermented fish sauces, and were popular condiments dating back to the first century AD, as favored as ketchup or mustard today. Noma “veganized” its garum by swapping fish for mushrooms, resulting in a plant-based interpretation utilizing fermented mushrooms for the umami kick that fish would have provided. Noma’s organic mushrooms are crushed with salt and rice koji, then brewed for months before cold smoking. The sauce, produced in Noma’s fermentation lab in Denmark, is sold only in limited batches, and the first release was so successful it was re-stocked in May. The versatile seasoning can be used in a variety of dishes, from omelets and ramens to carbonara pastas. Each bottle is user-friendly thanks to a QR code, which provides a list of recipes; a bespoke mushroom-printed tote is also available. In the future, Noma Projects plans to release additional items making innovative umami flavors more accessible for the everyday chef. nomaprojects.com