I’ve started drinking Honey Ginger Sake Kasu almost every night for two reasons: To warm up my body and to keep my skin looking fresh and youthful.
When using ginger to raise our body temperature, we actually have to cook it first. That’s why in the recipe I’m sharing below I’m boiling it in water in Step 1. Sake Kasu (also known as Sake Lee) is the residue of rice from the sake-making process. It has an enzyme that you don’t want to destroy by heating it so I recommend that you wait until the honey ginger water cools down a little bit before adding the Sake Kasu. If it’s summertime and you’d like to cool down your body, then use raw ginger in this recipe instead. In addition to helping you regulate your body temperature, taking Sake Kasu at night helps your skin maintain collagen. You might already be using some skin care products that contain rice and sake so you may as well drink these ingredients to make doubly sure they work…haha! We shall see.
Below is my recipe for the concentrated Honey Ginger Sake Kasu that you can dilute with hot water or mix with your favorite tea. At night, I either dilute it with a cup of hot water with 2-3 TBS of the Blend or I make camomile tea and then add 2 TBS of it.
Honey Ginger Sake Kasu Blend
3 to 5 oz of Sake Kasu This paste-like substance varies in thickness depending on how it’s packaged so you’ll need to adjust the portions accordingly. I used a softer one so used 5 oz but most of the packages I find in LA are more dense (almost like clay) so I would add a little less.
1/4 cup Honey
1 small ginger, sliced
2 Cups of purified water
Instructions:
Boil water, honey and slices of ginger all together at once.
Pour honey ginger water into blender. Wait until it cools down and then add 2 - 3 oz Sake Kasu to start off. Blend well. Taste it and add more Sake Kasu if you like. This is meant to be concentrated so that you can dilute it with your drinks.
Pour into a sanitized jar, refrigerate and try using it up within 7-10 days.
As always, in an effort to not waste any food, I’m on the lookout for other ways I can use this blend and have tried it with unsweetened yogurt. The Honey Ginger Yogurt is not bad. I’ve also added it to miso soup which instantly turned it into a gingerly miso soup. Also, Sake Kasu should be similar to the Chinese rice wine lee ‘酒醸’ so you can find it at both Japanese markets and Chinese markets though I haven’t bought the Chinese version yet.
Before I sign off, I’d better mention that Sake Kasu has a little bit of alcohol left. In my recipe, since I didn’t boil the Sake Kasu, you might taste the alcohol if you are sensitive to it. In that case, you can boil it to get rid of the remaining alcohol if you prefer.
This is how sake was being pressed in old days. Each small bag contains sake, including rice. Because it’s pressed, you’ll end up having the dry sheet of sake kasu in the bag.
