December 23, 2014 - 7:57am
Ideas for boosting umami
I'm curious if anyone has ideas for bread with more umami. I searched here for "umami". Basically, it returned sourdough rye with seaweed and nothing else. So, I'm wondering if anyone has further thought, and especially if you've tried anything.
For example, has anyone tried using high-umami ingredients that aren't commonly used in bread, like soy sauce as a full or partial replacement for salt? Anything else?
I may try something, but since I'm still very much a novice (barely started using different flours and using poolish), I'd be more inclined to do so if I don't have to fly blind.
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I made a sesame pumpkin seed Rye in which the seeds were doused with soy and roasted before going into the dough. And the seed percentage was quite high. The bread certainly had savory appeal to it. Or shall I say boosted umami. I've also used cheese and cured meats but that's not so uncommon. Some folks on Instagram were playing with Miso in their sourdough. From what I read they were decreasing salt levels but not cutting the salt out.
Josh
Robertson has a koji bread in Tartine 3. I haven't made it as in my mind it tastes terrible.
Cheese breads, olive breads, and bacon breads are all umami of course.
and also had it in their restaurant (Bar Tartine). It's a very pleasant loaf, slightly sweet, not high on umami. The rice completely disappears into the dough so you'd never guess what it was made of if you didn't know.
yah, which, I dare say, makes his koji bread more of a gimmick.
I can't speak to Robertson's intent, but his goal may not have been to make the bread actually taste of koji. Umami is much more of a subtle background taste than sweet, sour, etc., which may be why it wasn't recognized alongside them for so long. An example from my cooking is that I put a bit of garlic powder in potato salad. No one has ever said they tasted it, even when I've asked (open-endedly, not if they taste it specifically). But in a way that I can't really describe in words, the result is simply not as tasty if I leave it out.
for more flavourful capers, smoked bacon, olives and herb mixtures, steak seasoning, garlic, some salty some not. The more flavour involved the less salt is needed for flavour. Roasted onions would contribute to savoury flavours as well as well as using soups for liquid, vegetable juices and puree. V-8 Bread? Pickles and vinegar additions in bread is also known.
Yeast waters will also give more savoury results (so will leaving out sugar) but I prefer to dunk a neutral bread into meat sauces and seafood dishes than to lace my bread with tiny dried shrimp or bonito. Think along the line of rice dishes and rice uses. Jasmine bread might be interesting. Bury some blossoms into the flour. Just about anything cooked with the steaming rice would be an option. Curry spices, Tomatoes, Egg drop might be also considered, Egg drop into simmering celery soup liquid and then cooled before making dough with it. (Might be an interesting way to boost protein in a bread.) Bean additions to bread tend to be neutral but may help underline some savoury additions. I think you can get hits on tomato, bean, cabbage, celery, spinach breads. Liquid smoke may contain some of the properties making umami.
How about a little sauted shredded Chinese cabbage (Napa) and onion into the bread? That's familiar to me. Pizza could also be considered an umami food. So would garlic bread. Dumplings?
If I had to put my finger on it. Savoury means meaty to me. Something that goes well and complements meat. And many forms of bread do or can be served with savoury foods.
Oh, before I forget... Try Green tea instead of plain water. See what that does for your taste buds.
I neglected to mention that I had made one attempt to boost umami before my original post. It was a basic no-knead AP boule subbing beer for water. It turned out pretty well so I certainly intend to try making more beer breads, probably in conjunction with other flours, cheese, etc.
Green tea might be interesting, and maybe dashi and tomato juice. Parmesan and onion seem like other obvious umami-rich ingredients for me to try over the next while.
I haven't tried it yet, but I've been thinking about putting mushroom powder in some bread. If you have a spice grinder, you can just buy some dried mushrooms and grind them up.
in the water. That would work.
I have been looking to add a yeast fermented flavor to my bread. I have made it with wine,beer,kefir and kefir-fermented juice but haven't achieved what I want in flavor tho beer came the closest. Marmite might be the back-of-the-palate flavor I am looking for. I was going to go into adding spent grains but hadn't tried that yet.
Thank you for the idea,cow biscuits!
I decided to try a miso and toasted sesame seed loaf with 33% whole wheat flour and 75% hydration. The result was quite tasty although I can definitely think of things I'll tweak when I get around to trying it again.
In case anyone else might want to try making a miso loaf, I used 10% white miso. This amount didn't produce a distinct miso taste, which I didn't particularly want anyway, but together with the sesame seeds, it did impart an earthiness to both the taste and the aroma. I may try a bit more miso next time, but probably not more than 12-13%. And/or I may add a bit of salt instead. Being unsure how much saltiness I'd get from the miso, I used none this time.
Method was pretty basic no-knead baked in a dutch oven the day after the dough was mixed and with refrigeration overnight.