DISCOVERY OF MICROORGANISMS FOR SAUCE

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Traditional sauces like doenjang and soy sauce are indispensable ingredients in Korean cuisine. Korean scientists have now found indigenous microorganisms that can be utilized to reduce the bitterness while enhancing the savory taste.

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Cooked soybeans are taken out of a huge vat to be turned into blocks of meju. This is the first step to making Korea's traditional sauces such as doenjang. The key to creating the typical earthy flavor lies in reducing the bitterness and enhancing the savory taste.

[Soundbite] PARK SUN-IM(ICHEON, GYEONGGI-DO PROV.) : "It's important to ferment meju blocks well, but it's more important to adjust the amount of salt to balance the saltiness and acidity."

Different microflora such as bacteria or molds have been added for fermentation during the meju-making process. But all the microorganisms are imports from Japan. So local scientists collected meju from across the country to find indigenous microflora, and at last developed a microbial combination of Bacillus and Aspergillus oryzae. These microorganisms double the amount of substance that produces the earthy flavor of Korea's soybean-based sauces. Also, the substance responsible for the distinct savoriness is increased four to eight folds. All this, while the amount of bitter substance was reduced to a fifth of the original level. Plus, this microbial mixture helped drastically shorten the meju fermentation time to a week, when the traditional method would require two to three months.

[Soundbite] KIM SO-YEONG(RURAL DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION) : "The microorganism mixture improves the flavor by shortening the production period to less than a week and helps boost the generation of flavor-enhancing amino acids."

The Rural Development Administration plans to patent the indigenous microorganism mixture and utilize the technique to develop new products.