Explore the wonder and magic of the fantastic fifth taste with over 60 tantalizing recipes that take flavor to another dimension. Umami is the super-savory fifth basic taste. It is both ubiquitous and elusive, present but often unrecognized, and it has the extraordinary ability to enhance individual flavors, transporting dishes to another level. It is the taste that keeps on giving long after salty, sweet, bitter, and sour flavours are spent. Umami is a Japanese word that translates as ‘savoury deliciousness’, but it is far from a Far Eastern concept. It is absolutely universal and does not belong to any single culture—it can be shared, enjoyed and appreciated by all those in possession of a tongue. Everyone has experienced it—the salted anchovy that melts into the tomato of a pizza, the irresistible marriage of pancetta and Parmesan in a creamy spaghetti carbonara, or the rich, caramelized chorizo in a pan-fried calamari and chorizo salad. Once understood, umami is your best friend both in and out of the kitchen. Umami-rich ingredients will add magic to any dish, and make great cooks out of all of us. In this book, you’ll discover extraordinary new flavor combinations in dishes such as Steak Tagliata, Umami Rub and Garlic Pesto; Dark Chocolate and Orange Chilli Con Carne; and Sunshine Laksa with Crab, Snow Peas, and Millet. This book contains a taste of the wonder and magic of umami, and once bitten you will forever be smitten.

In the West, we have identified only four basic tastesÑsour, sweet, salty, and bitterÑthat, through skillful combination and technique, create delicious foods. Yet in many parts of East Asia over the past century, an additional flavor has entered the culinary lexicon: umami, a fifth taste impression that is savory, complex, and wholly distinct. Combining culinary history with recent research into the chemistry, preparation, nutrition, and culture of food, Mouritsen and Styrb¾k encapsulate what we know to date about the concept of umami, from ancient times to today. Umami can be found in soup stocks, meat dishes, air-dried ham, shellfish, aged cheeses, mushrooms, and ripe tomatoes, and it can enhance other taste substances to produce a transformative gustatory experience. Researchers have also discovered which substances in foodstuffs bring out umami, a breakthrough that allows any casual cook to prepare delicious and more nutritious meals with less fat, salt, and sugar. The implications of harnessing umami are both sensuous and social, enabling us to become more intimate with the subtleties of human taste while making better food choices for ourselves and our families. This volume, the product of an ongoing collaboration between a chef and a scientist, won the Danish national Mad+Medier-Prisen (Food and Media Award) in the category of academic food communication.

One of Food52's Best Cookbooks of Fall 2019 One of Epicurious' 12 Best Gift Ideas for the Vegetarian in Your Life “Umami Bomb is your go-to guide for infusing every meal with deliciousness....Thanks to Raquel’s clever ideas and the abundant flavor in her smart, streamlined recipes, this book is set to become a kitchen classic.” —Lindsay Maitland Hunt, author of Healthyish and Help Yourself Ingeniously built around the use of eight umami-rich ingredients—aged cheese, tomatoes, mushrooms, soy sauce, miso, caramelized onions, smoke, and nutritional yeast—Umami Bomb's 75 recipes are bursting with the sublime, savory fifth taste—and they're vegetarian! Turn mushrooms into “lardons” for a bold take on Southern black-eyed peas and greens. Caramelize onions to use in the best grilled cheese ever. Add a secret spoonful of soy sauce to the frosting of your next chocolate cake—the soy taste disappears but leaves behind an unexpected depth of flavor. Part of the brilliance of Umami Bomb is how the recipes layer these key ingredients to amplify their effect—like adding miso to an already cheesy cacio e pepe sauce for pasta so savory and delicious you’ll do a double take. Umami Bomb "addresses the “depth” issue for vegetarian cooks with a love letter to umami... [Pelzel's] insanely next-level grilled cheese recipe deploys two umami bombs — miso and caramelized onions — and, dare I say, is as satisfyingly decadent as a burger." —Jenny Rosenstrach, A Cup of Jo

In five extraordinary apartments live five extraordinary families. Designed in the shape of a tongue, each apartment takes the name of a flavour – sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami. And the tenants are no less eccentric. In Umami lives retired food anthropologist Alf, landlord and creator of the building. At Bitter lives manic depressive Marina, who neither eats nor paints but invents colours with words; at Sour lives newly parented (as well as New Age) couple Daniel and Daniela; and at Salty lives the Perez-Walkers with their daughter Ana, aka Agatha Christie, a precocious twelve-year-old who spends her days buried in detective novels to forget the unresolved death of her younger sister. Alf is also grappling with the death of a loved one. Recently bereaved, he types letters to his dead wife in the hope she will somehow respond, and together Alf and Ana lean on and support one another – until their lives threaten to spiral out of control. Darkly comic and dizzyingly inventive, Umami is a remarkable and heart-wrenching novel that is as compelling as it is whimsically devastating. Laia Jufresa’s work has appeared in McSweeney’s, Pen Atlas and Words Without Borders. In 2015 she was invited by the British Council to be the first ever International Writer in Residence at Hay Festival in Wales, and in the same year she was named as one of the most outstanding young writers in Mexico as part of the project México20. Umami is her first novel. She lives in Cologne, Germany. Sophie Hughes is a literary translator and editor living in Mexico City. Her translations have appeared in Asymptote, PEN Atlas, and the White Review and her reviews in the Times Literary Supplement and Literary Review.

The history of haute cuisine in Japan, with an emphasis on dashi and umami. Heston Blumenthal and other chefs contribute their dashi recipes.

Highly qualified food and nutrition scientists combine with some of the world's greatest chefs to produce this superbly illustrated revelation of the mysterious 'fifth taste' that has gained global recognition in recent years and has become such a key component in cooking. Featuring information on the science of the umami taste, and with recipes from world-class chefs such as Heston Blumenthal, Alexandre Bourdas, Michael Anthony and many more, Umami: The Fifth Taste presents wonderful new possibilities for cuisines of every genre and culinary style.

“A beautifully photographed . . . introduction to Japanese cuisine.” —New York Times “A treasure trove for . . . Japanese recipes.” —Epicurious “Heartfelt, poetic.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Expand a home chef’s borders” with this “essential guide to Japanese home cooking” featuring 100+ recipes—for seasoned cooks and beginners who crave authentic Japanese food (Martha Stewart Living). Using high-quality, seasonal ingredients in simple preparations, Sonoko Sakai offers recipes with a gentle voice and a passion for authentic Japanese cooking. Beginning with the pantry, the flavors of this cuisine are explored alongside fundamental recipes, such as dashi and pickles, and traditional techniques, like making noodles and properly cooking rice. Use these building blocks to cook an abundance of everyday recipes with dishes like Grilled Onigiri (rice balls) and Japanese Chicken Curry. From there, the book expands into an exploration of dishes organized by breakfast; vegetables and grains; meat; fish; noodles, dumplings, and savory pancakes; and sweets and beverages. With classic dishes like Kenchin-jiru (Hearty Vegetable Soup with Sobagaki Buckwheat Dumplings), Temaki Zushi (Sushi Hand Rolls), and Oden (Vegetable, Seafood, and Meat Hot Pot) to more inventive dishes like Mochi Waffles with Tatsuta (Fried Chicken) and Maple Yuzu Kosho, First Garden Soba Salad with Lemon-White Miso Vinaigrette, and Amazake (Fermented Rice Drink) Ice Pops with Pickled Cherry Blossoms this is a rich guide to Japanese home cooking. Featuring stunning photographs by Rick Poon, the book also includes stories of food purveyors in California and Japan. This is a generous and authoritative book that will appeal to home cooks of all levels.