How broths can enhance umami

Studies indicate that broths can enhance umami by “capturing” the fifth taste and adding more flavor to various preparations.

Humans have the incredible ability to use their capacity for invention combined with curiosity to transform their knowledge into innovation. These innovations may constitute something that facilitates or is necessary to a new lifestyle, such as the means of communication, for example.

For food, fire was one of the crucial discoveries for the constitution of taste, variation of aromas, textures and human nutrition, as well as, during modernity, for food safety and concern for life preservation. Today, we know that with cooking it is possible to preserve food in an extremely effective way, since it is one of the main methods used for antimicrobial treatment, in addition to completely altering texture, which facilitates chewing, and modifying the structure of proteins, complex carbohydrates and lipids, which directly influences the taste of food due to several chemical reactions resulting from this process (CARMODYA et al., 2011). Of course, like every innovation, there are also some drawbacks such as a decrease in vitamin concentrations, the formation of some undesirable compounds (such as acrylamides (ARISSETO et al., 2007, for example), or also some sensory losses.

How the preparation of broths helps to enhance umami

Some studies have tried to verify whether cooking can influence the gain or loss of umami taste. Ninomiya et al. (2010) analyzed the modifications of amino acids at different temperatures and cooking times (80ºC/5h; 95ºC/5h; 98ºC/2h) of bouillon stock*, a typical French broth cooked for up to 5 hours. The authors found that free glutamate was extracted from the ingredients into the cooking broth and the concentrations found were higher than the sensory detection limits of umami (0.03 mg/ml). This showed that umami could be the predominant taste in these broths. Sasaki et al. (2007) found something similar, as they analyzed the concentrations of umami substances (free glutamate and nucleotides) in muscles and in pork cooking broth. There was a decrease in free glutamate in the muscle after cooking, but in the broth, it was found in higher concentrations. In the case of nucleotides, there was no change in the first ten minutes of meat cooking, but a similar fact to free glutamate occurred, and they were found in the broth at the end of the treatment.

Another investigation carried out by Kurobayashi et al. (2008) demonstrated an increase in the perception of umami in chicken broths when cooked together with volatile constituents of celery after sensory evaluation. The mechanisms for this fact are not well explained, but there is a hypothesis that the increase in volatile compounds in the broth may have raised the umami sensation, since aromas contribute to the food flavor complex. In addition, cooking may have increased the concentration of umami substances by extracting free glutamate and nucleotides present in chicken meat.

With all these studies, it was possible to verify that if meat and vegetable broths are used to cook other foods, they can help to increase umami and the overall flavor of the preparations. For these and other reasons, ancient chefs used broths to make risottos and capelletti in brodo, for example. Without yet knowing what umami was, they were already adding a little more flavor to their dishes.

Curiosity: some chefs also use the term fond to differentiate from the preparation of broths. Fonds are made with the same ingredients as broths, but without meat, only with bones and sometimes carcasses.

*Bouillon stock: it is a typical broth of French cuisine, generally used as a base to compose soups and other foods. Bouillon has traditionally been prepared with vegetables such as onion, carrot, celery, herbs, meat or fish and is cooked for many, many hours until the flavors of the ingredients are extracted.