The first product for home cooks from Noma Projects, a food lab opened last year by the influential Copenhagen restaurant, is now available. It’s a vegan interpretation of garum, the fermented fish sauce that has been used as a seasoning since ancient Rome and will be familiar to anyone who uses fish and oyster sauces from Asia, English Worcestershire and Italian colatura. At Noma, they’ve turned to koji and mushrooms instead of fermented fish to create their umami-rich smoked mushroom garum. It’s not as intensely salty as some other garum-adjacent products, and the aroma and flavor reveal subtle smoke and mushrooms. There are recipes on the website. I tried the smoked mushroom cream sauce and split the recipe in half to finish with and without the smoked mushroom garum. With the garum it was more subtle.
Smoked mushroom garum, $24 for 8.45 ounces, $46 for two bottles, plus shipping, nomaprojects.com.
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