I made the chicken wing garum from the Noma guide to fermentation. The original recipe is:

3 kilograms chicken wings

1.6 kilograms chicken stock

450 grams Pearl Barley Koji

480 grams non-iodized salt

I decided to use rice koji instead of barley since I just bought a big bag of rice.

I started off by making a batch of rice koji. Basically cooking rice, cooling it to room temp, inoculating it with spores, and then incubating at about 90 F for around 3 days.

After the koji was finished, I roasted and chopped the chicken wings, and combined them with the rest of the ingredients in a gallon jar. Now comes the tough part. I needed to ferment at 140 F for 4 weeks. Unfortunately the heater I bought wouldn’t allow my fermentation chamber to get that hot. After a bit of warranty voiding and removing “unnecessary parts,” the heater was good to go.

You can see from the pictures that the garum got thinner and darker as time went on. Once it was finished, I strained it through 2 paint strainer bags, and pressed it with a fruit press to get every drop. I then passed it though a coffee filter and bottled it. I yielded just shy of 2 liters, which means there wasn’t much loss due to evaporation.

I haven’t had a chance to cook with it yet, but I have tasted it. It’s incredibly savory and salty, and tastes almost like soy sauce mixed with chicken bouillon. I can see it going really well with ramen or yakitori, or even roasted poultry.