Beef Wrapped Enoki Mushrooms

Many years ago one of my favourite restaurants in the city closed.  It was a Japanese restaurant called Neo Japonica.  I was really sad because this restaurant had my favourite appetizer - beef wrapped enoki mushrooms.  After years of longing for this dish, I decided to try and recreate it myself.  I marinated some thinly sliced steak in sesame oil, then wrapped it around enoki mushrooms and grilled it.  Very simple, yet very tasty.  The perfect little bundles of umami and savoury crunch.

 

 

 

While reaching for the sesame oil, I had about four spices fall from the cupboard.  My spice cupboard is a problem as it is too full!  I decided it was time to clean it out and organize it a bit better.  In the process I came across this:

Artificial Vanilla Extract

 Disgusting.  There is only one place for this vile stuff ...

I kept these two around though:

Okay - one task done, now off to bake, do laundry, and clean the floors before a fun-filled weekend.  This weekend I am going to a concert in the park and The Buddy Holly Story at the Globe Theatre. 

Any of your favourite restaurants ever close?

What are you up to this weekend?  

Need a new blog to read? If so, check out my sister's blog at Apolaustic Soul.

(Even if you don't need any new blogs to read, you should check it out anyway.  She is sorta cool - in a unicorn kind of way). 

Umami

By now most of you have probably heard of umami, the scientifically proven fifth taste.

Salty

Sweet

Sour

Bitter

Umami

Umami can best be described as savoury deliciousness, with its flavour due to in part to the amino acid glutamate. Umami was discovered in 1908 by a Japanese scientist, who wanted to uncover the source of deliciousness in dashi stock (made with kelp).  He isolated glutamate and coined the term umami to describe its distinct taste.  In the 1980s umami, found in glutamate, was scientifically accepted as the fifth taste.

Umami increases salivation, palatability, and reduces the need for salt. It has been referred to as the "perfect quality" in taste, or the reason you describe a particular meal as the "best thing I have ever tasted."

If you haven't heard of umami, you most likely have heard of MSG, which is a chemical flavour enhancer used to add glutamate to dishes.  Although the glutamate in MSG and umami is the same, umami is a natural taste, just like sweetness and bitterness, whereas MSG is artificial.

Foods with natural umami include, but are not limited to:

• Parmesan cheese (cheese is umami in general, but Parmesan in particular because it's low water content allows for concentrations of glutamate which are visible - ever notice those small white crystals in parm?  Umami at its finest and highest levels).
• Egg (especially yolk)
• Soy
• Fermented foods
• Beef (especially aged beef, like jerky)
• Pork (bacon anyone?)
• Chicken (chicken bones are packed with it - may be why chicken soup is so comforting)
• Mushrooms (both mushrooms and tomatoes appeal to our taste for protein, thus making good meat substitutes)
• Tomatoes (add parm and you have a real kicker!)
• Truffles
• Potatoes (including potato chips)
• Many sea foods

Some restaurants are catering to everyone's love for umami, and I hope to make it to one of these places in my travels: Umami Burger (LA, with one opening in NY late 2012), Umami (San Fransisco).  

Mmmmmm!

Until then, I will have to make my own umami dishes at home, and this stuff might help:

It is like natural MSG, adding pure umami deliciousness to any food I desire.  I picked it up while traveling in April but have yet to try it.   

The ingredient list includes: tomato paste, garlic, anchovy paste, black olives, balsamic vinegar, porcini mushrooms, Parmesan cheese, wine vinegar, olive oil, sugar and salt.  

What is your ultimate umami dish?