Umami Me

Over the past month or so I've become obsessed with umami.  What is umami?  Instead of trying to explain it I'd suggest you take at a look at this site for a full answer.  If you didn't want to go there let me give you my quick answer.  It's a 5th taste (like salty, sweet, sour, etc.) but instead of having a real "taste" it enhances and rounds out the other flavors.  The Japenese have known about this for a long time.  They incorperate many ingredients in their cuisine that have high levels of umami.  There are some ingredients that have a fairly high level of umami like tomatoes and mushrooms but to really get high levels of umami the ingredient has to go under some kind of fermentation.  Soy sauce, fish sauce or kombu (aged kelp) have high levels of umami because they have been fermented over a long period of time.  Parmasan cheese, the real stuff like parmigiano reggiano, is an something that most of us know about and used that has a high level of umami, because it has been aged for a long time, at least 2 years.

So how does this relate to baking?  Something that isn't and can't be aged for years.  That is true but fermentation is definitely apart of bread making; that's what the yeast does.  So how do you get extra fermentation in the bread?  If you've done any reading on the latest baking techniques you know about pre-ferments, poolish, sourdough starter, biga, etc.  There is also something called autolysing which is simply flour and water mixed together which not only starts the gluten formation, so that you don't have to mix as long which reduces oxidation of the dough, but also activates the enzymes in the flour to start breaking down the starch and protien in the flour.  In my bread I use multiple examples of this: I autolyse my flour, add serveral preferments, long primary proofing times and of couse I use yeast, except in my sourdoughs, to proof my dough.  All of this adds flavor and depth to my breads which I believe can be partly attributied to hightened levels of umami.

Here are some questions that I'm working on:

How can I add even more umami to my doughs?

How can I test the level of umami in my dough?

Can I add too much pre-ferment?  I know the answer to this is yes but, how much is too much?


I will be getting back to you on these questions and in the meantime if you have any info or suggestions I'm all ears.

This post is specifically about adding umami to bread dough but I've been trying to add umami into all of my cooking. It has definately raised my cooking to a new level and I highly suggest you give it a try.