had to describe my style of cooking I would say that I tend to improvise a lot. I do like to follow recipes once in a while, but mostly I cook by intuition. I do watch my fair share of cooking videos online, so naturally this gives me inspiration. It’s good to have solid bases. There are certain blends you know will work together. This is some of the hardest skill to acquire as a cook in my opinion. It takes time and a lot of experimentation. Naturally, it’s good if you can find shortcuts. Most of mankind history has been about experimenting with food and finding combinations that work. Who would have known that letting certain food rot, would make them taste better? This was long before we understood microorganisms and the various chemical processes involved. Someone just had to try it and be courageous enough to taste the end product. You could argue that it probably was out of necessity or desperation that our ancestries ate rotten food and you’d probably be right.
What I would like to discuss now has nothing to do with rotting, but I think it’s an equally important part of cooking: Umami.
Umami or Savoriness is described as one of the 5 basic tastes along with : Sweetness, Sourness, saltiness, bitterness.
Even though I had heard about it a few times before, I only stared to understand the true meaning of this flavor component a few years back when I started learning about ramen soups. I remember watching an episode of a “The mind of a chef” on Netflix where David Chang and the host visited a restaurant in Japan specializing in tsukemen. This was an eye opener. A dish that I thought was quite simple, required a lot of depth, complexity and precision to craft the perfect bowl of soup.
My ramen journey led me to pay more attention to this flavor component in my cooking. Fast forward to a few months back when I received some wild rice in my weekly grocery delivery from lufa farms.
What set out to do now is to build a literal Umami bomb. As always, I started to cook the rice, without knowing where this would lead me.
Umami bomb salad with Amazing skirt steak and vegs.
The base of the salad is wild rice that you can find in your local grocery store. Wild rice does not cook the same as basmati or or other varieties of rice. It will need to cook for at least 20 minutes, though you still want it a bit al dente. It will have a nice bite to it and will contribute to the textures of this salad.
An important flavor component are red onions. For this recipe, I prefer to use red onions rather than white ones, for the color, but also because I find them slightly sweeter.
We want to pack a flavor punch, so I suggest you roast them in a cast iron skillet at relatively high heat. Another intesting idea would be to roast them in the oven and ideally get a bit of char on them.
The next component that we add to build up flavor are Shittake mushrooms. Mushroom contain a lot of MSG naturally, the main component of umami. The preparation for thos should be simple. You just need to grill them gently with a bit of oil or butter. Season them lightly with salt if you want, but there will be plently of other sources of saltiness.
We then add sun dried tomatoes to that. Again, tomatoes are rich in MSG and bring a bit a color to the salad.
I also like to roast pine nuts. This brings a nice nutty flavor to round it out.
Next we can work on the liquid base. You could say that the sauce is inspired by what you would call tare for a ramen broth, except it won’t take 18 hours to make.
I add :
- dark soy sauce
- Vietnamese fish sauce
- rice vinegar
- sesame oil
- and sambal olek or chili paste if you like a bit of heat
This liquid mix will add a lot of depth to the salad. Start with the soy and fish sauces to get the right level of saltiness. Now, we want to lighten it up with vinegar. Having acid is key to balance flavors, otherwise it will be ovewhelming.
To finish it off I like to add grated ginger. You can also buy the prepared one, which does a decent job. I also add some white ground pepper. I really think this adds a unique touch to the dish.
Lastly, you can add cilantro if you like.
Hope you enjoy this recipe, and let me know in the comments if you have any suggestions to improve it or make it even punchier!