Natto

Glycine max · Legume

40 pairings

Natto is a traditional Japanese breakfast food of whole soybeans fermented with the bacterium Bacillus subtilis var. natto into sticky, glistening beans bound together by long, gooey, spider-web threads. It is fiercely divisive: pungent and ammoniacal, with a nutty, faintly bitter, deeply savoury taste and a slimy, stringy mouthfeel that pulls into silken strands as you lift it. Stirred until foamy and spooned over hot rice with mustard, soy sauce and chopped spring onion — sometimes a raw egg — it is one of the most nutritious everyday foods in the Japanese diet, prized as a source of protein, fibre and vitamin K2.

Picking a good onedrag

Freshly ripened, long threadsAmmoniacal, dry, threads gone

Mid-dateThe standard pack: stir, season, eat as-is, and keep it at 10 C or below. Anyone taking warfarin is told to avoid natto - its vitamin K is enormous.Everyday best

The threadsThreads still draw well, shorter, breaking sooner

The beansGlossy, colour deepening, the film a little thicker

SmellSharper, more ammonia, the nutty base still under it

The packStill cold, a few days left on the date

What to look for, from freshly ripened, long threads to ammoniacal, dry, threads gone.

What one gives you

100%

Usable yield

Nothing to discard - refuse is 0, this is a finished food, not a bean to be cooked. The useful number is the retail unit: 40-50 g of beans per tub, sold two to four tubs to a sleeve. The dry-to-cooked swell of a pulse does not apply; the soak and the steam already happened in the factory.

Preparing