Homemade natto in Ho Chi Minh City, using Miyagino natto bacteria

We're a couple who just love natto... Every morning, my husband uses a Songbe-yaki bowl meant for natto (it was I who picked out that dish, mind you...) and stirs it round and round.

Natto with green onions, okra, and sesame... plus wasabi or karashi mustard (depending on my mood). Drizzling on a little natto sauce made of white dashi and soy sauce and eating it that way is my go-to breakfast. What a convenient world we live in — you can even get Japanese natto overseas. But since it comes frozen... the flavor, and the stickiness too, suffer a bit. And the price ends up being higher, too. (There's just no helping all of that, I suppose.) So I thought I'd try making it myself, and when I looked into it, it seems some of the wives of expatriate workers do it too. I realized you can make it if you have a yogurt maker, so I gave it a try. And surprisingly, it turned out pretty decent! When I went back to Japan, I bought an Iris Ohyama yogurt maker and brought it home with me. I make yogurt with it every day, too (↓).

But... the starter we'd been using was frozen natto. So we got to thinking — if we used real natto bacteria, maybe we could get even closer to genuine Japanese natto? The conversation between us food-loving spouses really got going, and when we looked it up, results popped up in just a few seconds, one after another. A way to obtain pure natto bacteria — it was right there on Amazon! So we asked a friend who was making a short trip back home to bring the natto bacteria over for us. Ta-da!

The more you learn about natto bacteria, the more fascinating they become. With just this tiny amount (50 ml), it seems you can make 400 packs — nearly a whole year's worth. And it apparently doesn't even need to be refrigerated for storage... There were quite a few companies making natto bacteria, but this time I chose this long-established maker in Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture, that has been around for a very long time. Miyagino Natto Bacteria https://www.miyagino-nattou.com/ I made it using the odorless, liquid-type one. I set up two yogurt makers to make it, but maybe I didn't drain off the moisture quite well enough? The Iris Ohyama one turned out nicely, but the other maker (bought in Vietnam: HIROTEC), I got the timer setting wrong and the temperature control wasn't great, so it turned out a bit of a failure.

It's an incredibly simple machine and easy to use, but since you can't make detailed settings... That said, it makes yogurt just fine, and even with natto, as long as you're careful not to forget to set the timer, it's OK. Though... it didn't turn out as sticky as I'd expected... My husband, surprisingly, was full of praise, saying it has a nice aroma of the beans' natural flavor, so next time I plan to improve the precision a little more. It's true that there's none of that distinctive "gu-fufufu" smell we've had until now, and the plump, steamed quality of the soybeans is preserved just as it is—if a powerful stickiness were added too, it would be unbeatable. Once we've finished this batch, I'll give it a proper try one more time. Relocation Life Ranking