Pepper Tamari

Pepper Tamari

A powerful reduction to flavor any dish

Pepper Tamari is an aromatic finishing sauce with a rich, consistency that might remind you of Dashi RDX. Pepper Tamari has become a noma essential over the past few years. It’s also the first tamari we’ve shared beyond Copenhagen.  One thing to note is that Pepper Tamari is far from spicy. We turn to this tamari for the uniquely fragrant notes that come from the use of ground Madagascar pepper.

Start with peaso, end with pepper

To make Pepper Tamari, we blend a noma-style peaso with water, freeze, and then ice-clarify to get a clear liquid that we reduce to a syrupy consistency. We accent that syrup with ground, aromatic Madagascar pepper that brings notes of nutmeg, cumin, allspice, and Szechuan. It’s more fragrant and delicate than it is spicy.

A good shake, the perfect finish

Pepper Tamari is a finishing sauce that’s great for brushing onto barbecued seafood, drizzling over grilled vegetables, or whipping into your favorite butter for a bit more flavor. Just avoid direct heat and remember to shake well before use! 

  • One bottle contains 100mL (3.38oz)
  • Soy and dairy-free
  • Made by hand by the Noma Projects team in Copenhagen

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Pairs well with

Pairs well with

About Pepper Tamari

The story of reductions at noma, or what we in the kitchen refer to as simply, RDX, starts with miso. During the formative years of noma, when the fermentation lab was on a houseboat, we experimented with the process of making miso after some very inspiring research trips to Japan. As rice and soy beans are not native to Denmark, we tried making miso out of different local grains and legumes. We found success with barley koji and split yellow peas, which came to be known among our team as peaso. While making peaso we discovered the world of tamari, which traditionally comes from the liquid that separates and sits atop the solids of the miso base, and then slowly evaporates as it ferments over time. The “tamari” liquid extracted from our peaso was so delicious, it was a lightbulb moment and kickstarted a deep dive into tamaris.

We wanted to see if it was possible to replicate the flavor of tamari in a quicker way than the evaporation that happens during the natural fermentation process. To speed things up, we blended our peaso with water for the base, experimented with adding the juices of every fruit or vegetable we had at our disposal, clarified the liquid, and then reduced those mixtures using very low heat until reaching a gently caramelized, syrup-like consistency. This is the process we refer to when we speak about RDX, or our series of reductions.  

The results yielded some very exciting and umami rich sauces, many of which quickly became staples on our pantry shelf. We’ve been refining this technique ever since, using different iterations of these reductions on our menus through the years, and Dashi RDX is the first that we are thrilled to be able to bottle and share with home cooks.