Flavor

Apparently, umami paste is now available in Europe (at least in the UK and in Paris).

I don't know precisely what this is, and I wonder if it is simply a paste loaded with Monosodium Glutamate (MSG). The branding, however, is brilliant. People are afraid of MSG. It sounds artificial and chemical. Easy to use "umami" though? Yeah. People want that.

If anyone has some more information on this stuff, let me know.

Of course I'm far from the first person to discover them---being a Mediterranean staple and all---and in fact I've been using them for years but I guess recently I reflected on how much of a little flavor bomb even one of these is. Fresh tomatoes are nice but they tend to be pretty crummy out of season, whereas drying captures (and intensifies) the flavor at its peak. They've got an intense tomato sweet 'n' sour flavor, some nice chew when left dried, and take nothing to prepare but a few seconds with kitchen shears or a knife, and perhaps a brief soak in some warm water if you want to rehydrate them. They're cheap and store well. They're versatile and can be used in many different savory dishes. Definitely on the list of kitchen essentials!

Earlier this week, I wrote about The Breakaway Cook
- a great cookbook by Eric Gower that focuses on using flavor blasts to enhance otherwise-simple meals. He mentions a number of what he calls "flavor blasts." These are intensely flavored ingredients that can be used to elevate a simple dish. Gower presents a number of flavor blasts, some of which I mentioned in my earlier post. I thought I'd add some more that aren't on Gower's list.

Lime zest - I don't actually like lemons, generally. Via some sort of weird inside-out-psychology, they remind me of cleaning solution. Limes, however, I love. Lime zest is a cinch with the microplane, and it adds an intense flavor punch without the acidity of the lime juice.

Pomegranate Molasses - This is on Gower's list, but I'm including it here because I've been using (and talking about) it a lot lately.

Dried fruits - These keep for a long time, and they are concentrated flavor. You can plump them up, use them as-is, or toss them in a blender with some liquid. Just to be a pest, I'll include sun-dried tomatoes in this category.

Wasabi, Horseradish, and Mustard - There are differences between the three, and variants within each. They add a different sort of heat to a dish than peppers do, and they mix well with a surprising variety of flavors.

Tamarind - This is a sour fruit that is popular in a variety of Latin American and Asian cuisines. You can usually find tamarind paste fairly readily. It is very versatile.

Fish Sauce - Usually found in Southeast Asian food, fish sauce is very salty and can be somewhat fishy. Used with a light touch, it can add an incredible depth of flavor. I like Squid brand.

Liqour - Some alcoholic beverages - rums, whiskeys, tequilas and the like - have strong, distinctive flavors of their own that can add dramatically to a dish. In addition, these ingredients can release alcohol-soluble flavors that would otherwise be hidden in your food.

There are plenty more where these came from: rhubarb, mint, nutmeg, sauerkraut, truffle oil, coffee, olives... not to mention all of those which Gower writes about.

As I've mentioned before, I don't really read cookbooks for the recipes. Instead, I read them for the tips, techniques, and thought processes that they contain. By this standard Eric Gower's The Breakaway Cook is a great cookbook. This isn't to say that the recipes in it aren't worthwhile, but the real gems here are in the first fifty or so pages of information on ingredients and techniques.

Gower focuses on what he calls breakaway cooking. He claims that this is distinct from fusion in that it is concerned with keeping things simple. I call that splitting hairs (or, perhaps more likely, an attempt at branding). This is a fusion cookbook. There's nothing wrong with that. It isn't overly complicated. Simply because some fusion is complicated doesn't mean that all fusion is. It doesn't need to be. Gower concentrates on what he calls "global flavor blasts" - ingredients with strong flavors from around the world that can be added to otherwise-simple dishes. Some of these flavor blasts are familiar (vinegars, chiles), some are less so (maccha, umeboshi), and some are things that you can make yourself (flavored salts, garlic confit) with the simple recipes included to keep on hand.

Gower spent fifteen years living in Japan, and it shows. Many of the flavors he favors are heavily used in Japanese cuisine, and a number of the recipes in the book have at least some Japanese influence to them (though other cuisines are not neglected). He has apparently also written a cookbook - The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen- that focuses more on Japanese food than this one. Still, it was easy for me to read this and expand the basic ideas to include flavors from other cuisines. For instance, I could easily adapt the recipe for Umeboshi Duck Legs to become Tamarind Duck Legs.

It is the flavor blast idea that I really took away from this book. It is something that I've done often on a not-fully-conscious level in the past. Gower gave the idea a name, which lets me think about it consciously and more effectively. It also raises the possibility of other sorts of "blasts" - what about a texture blast? Later this week, I'll toss out some flavor blasts that I use regularly.

You can read more about this book and style of cooking on the Breakaway Cook Blog.

Ive been following They Go Really Well Together (TGRWT) for some time now. It began on Khymos as a group project in molecular gastronomy to test whether foods that shared key chemicals that contributed to their aroma or flavor would compliment each other. Each month, a different flavor combination is chosen by the (rotating) host, and people from around the web contribute their creations. This month's pairing is chicken and rose, and my contribution follows...

Along with sweet, salty, sour, and bitter, umami is one of the five primary flavors that humans can detect via receptor cells on their tongue. The term umami was coined in 1908 by Dr. Kikunae Ikeda of Tokyo Imperial University, who was investigating the active ingredients in kelp that lead to the savory taste of dashi broth, a staple of Japanese cuisine. This lead him to isolating monosodium glutamate (MSG) as the chemical responsible for that taste. The Ajinmoto company was created to market MSG. Other chemicals that produce and enhance this taste were found in various foods that we tend to identify as meaty or savory. It was not until very recently, however, that umami was determined to be one of the basic tastes that we could perceive via our tongues.

Isn't MSG bad for you?

No. Not really.

What foods contain umami?

The flavor of umami is found in a huge variety of foods. This isn't surprising if you consider how many foods taste sour or sweet. Still, some foods are known for their high umami content:

• Meat. Red meats tend to be higher than others. Aging, curing, and drying meats generally intensifies the umami taste.
• Fish. Small fish, such as anchovies and sardines are particularly high in umami, as are red-fleshed fish such as tuna. Again, processing seems to intensify the flavor. Dried and fermented fish products have high levels of umami.
• Other Seafood Scallops, Clam, Shrimp, Squid and other seafood tend to be high in umami. Oyster sauce is a common way of harnessing this flavor.
• Seaweed and Kelp. From dashi broth to the nori that your sushi comes with, sea vegetables are rich in umami taste.
• Mushrooms and truffles
• Fruits/Vegetables: Potatoes, Carrots, Soybeans, Sweet Potatoes, Asparagus, Tomatoes.
• Dairy: Parmesan Cheese, aged cheeses, blue cheeses.
• Green tea

Many condiments are carriers of umami: ketchup, soy sauce, fish sauce, and worcestershire Sauce are all used to transport this flavor to other dishes. Marmite and vegemite are also both extremely rich in umami flavor.

How to use umami

There are three types of chemicals glutamates (found mostly in vegetables and dairy products) , inosinates (which tend to be in meats), and guanylates (mushrooms) which carry the umami taste. Umami flavor is strengthened (and, generally, considered best) when the these chemicals work together. Umami can also be intensified by salty or sweet flavors. Glutamates can be accentuated by acidic/sour flavors. The traditional dashi which lead to the discovery of umami gains its flavor from a combination of kelp (glutamates) and bonito flakes (inosinates). Some foods, such as beef, pork, chicken, shrimp, and nori contain both glutamates and inosinates. Truffles and green tea contain all three.

Image by Abulic Monkey One of the things chefs often strive for is building strong, pure flavors. Some of the techniques they use to accomplish this are easy enough that anyone can do them at home. Other techniques require some ingenuity, but we can handle that. Right?