Umami Tsunami

Chef Melissa Craig of Bearfoot Bistro puts the finishing touch
on a few savoury, umami-rich dishes.

LIKE COMPOUND INTEREST or the opera, umami is one of those things you can enjoy without really understanding. That’s good, because the fifth taste—along with sweet, sour, salty and bitter—is not well understood outside Asia, where it’s a vital component of many cuisines. Some describe it as the savoury quality inherent in fermented and protein-rich foods. Naturally found in foods like soy and fish sauces, miso soup, mushrooms and tomatoes (as well as in MSG, or monosodium glutamate), umami has a cross-cultural appeal that’s been drawing talented chefs who are eager to explore this new taste frontier.

Bearfoot Bistro, Whistler
Chef Melissa Craig claims she didn’t hear the word “umami” until cooking school, but had always unconsciously incorporated the flavours in her food. “Miso and soy add body and balance,” says the Bearfoot Bistro’s executive chef (4121 Village Green, Whistler, B.C., 604-932-3433, bearfootbistro.com). Craig won the Gold Medal Plates Canadian Culinary Championships last year, with a winning meal using king crab in three ways, each incorporating umami: the meat combined with Japanese mayonnaise and tobiko (flying fish roe), served inside a bamboo cone with dipping sauce made from soy and Pop Rocks; crab croquettes on mango-basil purée; and a crab and coconut soup with fish sauce.

Catch, Calgary
Raised near Tokyo, Hayato Okamitsu says he “grew up with umami.” For the past decade, he has been incorporating glutamate-rich ingredients into his food. At Catch (100 8th Ave. SE, Calgary, 403-206-0000, catch
restaurant.ca), that includes kombu (a thick seaweed) in braised pork chops and sukiyaki-style braised short ribs. Okamitsu also braises daikon (a pickled radish) in umami-rich ingredients like dashi (a soup stock made from kombu and flakes of dried bonito, or mackerel). “Usually daikon has a spicy taste,” he says, “but if you add the umami flavour, it becomes sweeter.”

River Café, Calgary
Chef Scott Pohorelic’s fascination with Japanese cooking kindled when he worked at Tojo’s in Vancouver. Today, he incorporates umami in the River Café’s regional Canadian cuisine (200 Barclay Parade SW, Calgary, 403-261-7670, river-cafe.com) in subtle ways. Glutamate-packed anchovies are used in a tomato-rich marinade for lamb. “There’s not enough anchovy in there to taste it,” he says, “but it adds depth.” In a vegetarian shepherd’s pie, Pohorelic includes dulse seaweed from Newfoundland in the mushroom gravy. He steeps umami-full parmesan cheese rinds into halibut stock for a little extra kick. The Calgary chef likens umami to a “sub-woofer in your home-theatre system”—something you notice only when it’s missing. wl