When we eat, we use all of our senses to form judgments about how our food tastes. In deciding whether food is delicious, we are all unique in determining what balance of the four taste groups (sweet, salty, sour and bitter) must exist if we were to describe a meal as delicious.
Our cultural backgrounds also influence the taste and flavors of our food, and what might be delicious for you, maybe less interesting to someone else. One thing we all agree on is that food should have a depth and a richness that makes it interesting and more intense.The Japanese call this depth of flavor umami, and it is this intensity that excites our taste buds and encourages us to keep eating.
The discovery of umami is credited to Kikunae Ikeda, a researcher at Tokyo Imperial University, who in 1908 isolated a distinctive compound in seaweed broth that he called umami. Umami is a distinct yet difficult flavor to describe. It is created by the interaction of naturally occurring amino acids called glutamines. When Ikeda identified glutamine as a distinctive flavor compound, he managed to separate out a unique crystalline powder, which later came to be known as Monosodium Glutamate (MSG). The addition of two other naturally occurring amino acids (guanosine and inosine), created a synergistic flavor enhancement effect that paved the way to many developments in food science. One of these developments was the idea of prepackaging flavor enhancers. With the science in hand and willing manufacturers to make and package the product, these flavor enhancers were made available to the consumer and revolutionized the way people began to cook.
This savoriness, as western society describes umami, is the name for the taste sensation commonly found in fermented and aged foods such as soy sauce, fish sauce, parmesan, roquefort cheese and anchovies. It is also found in ripe tomatoes, carrots, shitake mushrooms, seawood, crab, lobster, shrimp, walnuts, grapes, broccoli, meat and many other foods. Many people consider umami the fifth taste category, because there is a specific taste receptor on your tongue that transmits the savory flavor of food to your brain. Others believe that it is not in fact a distinct flavor, but simply a subset of another taste category. What do you think?
Here is a delicious beef stew recipe that uses the principles of umami to enhance the flavor.
Beef Stew
**An original recipe by www.goodfoodgourmet.com
2 pounds stew meat, dusted with flour (about 2 Tablespoons)
1 cup olive oil
8oz pearl onions (half a bag)
8oz cremini mushrooms, sliced (1 package)
8oz fresh peas
4 carrots, small dice
4 small celery stalk, small dice
4 garlic cloves, sliced
1 small can tomato paste
1 T sugar
3 bay leaves
6 cups veg stock or beef stock, or enough to cover everything
½ cup soy sauce
1 package potato gnocchi (cook according to directions)
The day before you plan to make the stew, marinate the meat in the soy sauce to enhance the flavor and help tenderize the meat. When ready to cook, add ½ cup olive oil to a large pot and heat well. Add mushrooms and sautee until caramelized then remove from the pot into a bowl. Add the rest of the oil, then add meat and caramelize well, then remove and put into the same bowl with the mushrooms. Add all of the vegetables along with the sliced garlic and sautee in the same pot. Once the veggies have caramelized, add the tomato paste and stir well for another 5 minutes to render some more flavor from the concentrated tomato. Then add the meat and the mushrooms back in to the pot, and continue to stir. You will see caramelization start to form at the bottom of the pan like this…
Stir together for about 1o minutes to meld together all of the flavors, then cover it all with the stock and throw in the bay leaves. If you don’t have stock, you can add boiled water along with some boullion cubes. Stir up all of the caramelized flavor bits that have formed at the bottom of the pan. At this point it should look like this…
Wait until everything comes to a boil, then lower the heat to very low, and let it cook slowly for about 1 ½ hours. Stir occasionally every 15 minutes or so… It will become thick, hearty and delicious. Perfect for any day and easy to throw together. Serve over rice or thick cut egg noodles. You can also use potato gnocchi if you don’t want rice or pasta. Just boil them separately, and add on top of the beef stew about 15 minutes before serving. These little potato dumplings are perfect with the stew if you are looking to have something different.
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