Preparation of egg-koji for developing a novel food

Abstract

While chicken eggs contain many nutrients necessary for humans and there are various cooking methods, the nutritional components are used as they are, and there are no traditional foods that utilize microorganisms. Koji-mold, containing Aspergillus oryzae, A. sojae, and A. luchuensis, which has been used in various fermented foods since ancient times, grows on raw grain materials such as rice and barley to become koji. This can give flavors not found in the raw materials that can decompose and convert the nutritional components of the raw materials. Here, we succeeded for the first time in developing egg-koji that uses only eggs and koji-mold by selecting and combining cooked egg powder (CEP) and A. oryzae AO101 as the most suitable combination. To suppress the explosive growth of harmful bacteria, we improved the sterilization method, watering method, and amount of water. In addition, it was found that egg-koji has a characteristic enzyme activity balance, in which amylase is extremely low and protease at pH 6 was high compared to grain koji, such as rice and barley. Egg-koji might produce enzymes suitable for taking in nutrients when growing into CEP and would be expected to give a flavor that could not be achieved by cooking or additives.

Keywords: Aspergillus oryzae; Egg; Enzyme activity balance; Koji; Substrate specificity.