Sakekasu

All is not lost however. I was left with quite a bit of lees ("sakekasu" in Japanese).

It is another versatile ingredient.
It can be made into a cake, mixed into a bread,  used for pickling vegetables, fish and meat. Japanese vegans use it when they want to add creamy, cheesy flavour into their western style dishes. Hence, pasta sakekasu tomato sauce, sakekasu quiches etc. etc.

The tastier the sake is, the better tasting its lees is, but there is no shop selling the thing, so my own sake is the only option.


To begin with, I start with something more simple-- sakekasu soy sauce.

Sakekasu: Soy Sauce= 1:1

I use it as if it is just a normal bottled of soy sauce when I am cooking stir fry. Half the sodium, tastes better. I think I can keep it in a fridge for up to about a month, though it has never really lasted that long.

Ages ago, sakekasu was 'the alcohol of common people' as the lees is much cheaper but still pretty alcoholic. It must have been particularly so in those days before the machine wringing out every drop of sake out of it.
 There is a particularly memorable joke people told during the Edo period (1603-1868) introduced in  Drinking Japan .

The friends of one nortoriously penniless drunkard ask: "How much did you drink?" He replies "Half a kilogram". (p.14)

Well, I don't think my sakekasu is good enough to eat on its own, but it does seem to make good enough a sauce.