Cookaholics Bulletin Board

It was a waste of good Guinness. I wasn't a fan of their regular stew with red wine either. The Carbonnade and the Goulash are the only ones I make regularly. But the Jamie Oliver one was so easy and tasty it will go into regular rotation. Unless I drink the Guinness first.

Whilst tiptoeing through the t̶u̶l̶i̶p̶s̶ umami minefield, I found The Fifth Taste: There’s More to Umami Than You Thought.

It turns out that half of the magic is brought to the tables by foods rich in N̶e̶m̶a̶t̶o̶d̶e̶s̶ nucleotides. Explains why Accent needs a little bit of help

Very interesting. I'd be interested in what in typical Japanese food that is served with Dashi has such high nucleotides. If you taste Dashi alone, is is quite mild. Make some HotPot with it (or just maybe some fish and Soba with a little veg or something), and boom! Mega Flavour (in the Japanese vein, not the roasted/GBD types of flavours in euro food). I'd presume it must be fish, it would be interesting how different fish compare and if you let it contribute to the selection.

(I will add some dried shittake next time to my noodle dish, which reminds me, its high time to have some!)

I guess I never thought of these items as bombs, I just use them because of the depth of flavor they add. Mostly, I use them if a recipe calls for and if I taste something and it seems to be "thinly" flavored, I start adding appropriate bombs until it tastes right to me.

Ilene,

It's a matter of quantity. If you add a little parmigiano, or anchovy, or miso, or soy, or browned onion to something, that's just tweaking the flavor. If you add all five, that's a bomb.