Where umami comes from and how to stack it, explained one principle at a time.
📚 3 Fundamentals
What You'll Learn
You will learn which foods carry which compound, the temperature that extracts them, and how to avoid overdoing it.
Two lists, one from each
Glutamate comes from kombu, tomato, and dried mushroom. Inosinate comes from bonito, chicken, and pork. Take one from each list and stop there.
When a broth tastes flat, I do not add salt first. I add a second umami source and taste again.
Did you know?
Combining glutamate and inosinate raises perceived umami by roughly eight times. Adding more of one alone does almost nothing.
Pro Tip
If a soup tastes thin, add dried mushroom before you add salt. Salt makes it louder. Umami makes it deeper.
