UMAMI
THE JAPANESE WORD UMAMI refers to a category of flavor, a fifth taste, after salt, sweet, sour, and bitter. It’s the taste that is “meatiness,” which we associate with ripe tomatoes, deep-flavored mushrooms, soup stocks, grilled meats, and more. English speakers have adopted the word, since there is no exact English-language equivalent.
In the cooking of Burma there are a lot of “umami ingredients,” whose major role is giving a dish meaty depth of flavor. They include fish sauce, shrimp paste, fermented soybeans and soybean disks, fermented fish, dried shrimp, soy sauce, and oyster sauce (all these ingredients are described in the Glossary), as well as meat and fish. Burmese cooks also use MSG for meatiness, especially in soups; I usually substitute fish sauce for MSG. When I ask cooks in Burma what they or their mothers did before the arrival of MSG, they tell me that there was more use of fish stocks, and sometimes broths from meat bones, to give depth of flavor.
Substitution of one umami ingredient for another is always possible: If you have a recipe that calls for fermented soybeans, for example, and you don’t have them available, or a recipe that calls for shrimp paste and you don’t like the taste of it, you can substitute another umami ingredient, keeping in mind that the seasoning may have to be adjusted.
The issue of substitution also comes up if you are adapting recipes for vegetarians or vegans. Instead of fish sauce, use salt (1 teaspoon salt is approximately equal in saltiness to 1 tablespoon fish sauce); instead of Dried Shrimp Powder (opposite), use Toasted Chickpea Flour for its thickening effect and agreeable taste, and add a little soy sauce or miso paste. Adding dried mushrooms to a dish also increases depth of flavor just as shrimp paste and fish sauce do. Best of all, follow the Shan approach to umami and use fermented soybeans in place of shrimp paste and other fermented or preserved fish ingredients. The Shan use tua nao—soybean disks—but in North America, brown miso paste (see Glossary) is more readily available. If you want to make your own Soybean Disks.
MAKES 2 CUPS
For this distinctively Burmese pantry staple, which is very easy to make and store, chickpea flour is simply lightly toasted in a skillet. Chickpea flour is made from ground dried chickpeas (garbanzos) and contains no gluten (see the
Glossary for more). The flour is available in South Asian groceries (the common name for it in India is
besan), some health food stores, and specialty stores. Keep it in a well-sealed bag in a cool place, as you would any flour.
Make this in any quantity you wish; I usually make 2 cups at a time. Use in salads to add a layer of flavor and texture, and also to thicken sauces and soups, as directed.
Place a cast-iron or other heavy skillet over medium-high heat, add the flour, and use a wooden spoon to stir it frequently as it heats and starts to toast. Lower the heat to medium if it starts to brown quickly, and keep stirring to expose all the flour to the heat. After about 6 or 7 minutes, it will start to change color. Lower the heat a little and continue to stir as it gets a little more color, then remove from the heat and continue to stir for another minute as the pan starts to cool. The whole process takes about 10 to 12 minutes.
Transfer to a wide bowl and let cool to room temperature. Store in a clean, dry glass jar, well sealed.
Toasting sesame seeds is like roasting peanuts, except that the process is very quick. Make sure your sesame seeds are fresh; taste them before you use them. Set a cast-iron or other heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the sesame seeds and let them heat, shaking the skillet from time to time to ensure that they aren’t scorching; or use a wooden spoon to stir them. After a few minutes, you will start to smell their lovely aroma; keep stirring so they don’t scorch. Cook for another minute or two, until they are lightly touched with gold. Transfer to a wide bowl and let cool completely. Store, once completely cooled, in a clean, dry glass jar.
At the top, whole ginger and a couple of slices; in the middle, a bowl of dried shrimp sitting in a bowl of shelled peanuts without their skins; at the bottom, turmeric rhizomes, showing their brilliant orange insides, and a bowl of Toasted Chickpea Flour.
MAKES A SCANT 1 CUP
These are handy to have when you are making Burmese salads, so it’s worth making a cupful or more at a time and storing them in a jar. Buy raw peanuts (in their papery skins or not, it doesn’t matter)—you’ll find them in Asian groceries and health food stores.
1 cup raw peanuts, with or without their papery skins
Place a cast-iron or other heavy skillet over medium heat, add the peanuts, and cook, stirring them frequently with a wooden spoon or spatula to prevent burning. Adjust the heat if necessary so they toast and change color gradually, in patches; as they heat up, the skins, if still on, will separate from the peanuts. When they have firmed up a little and are dotted with color, remove from the heat, but keep stirring for another minute or so.
If using skin-on nuts, carry the skillet over to a sink or a garbage can and blow over it gently to blow away the loose skins. Rub the nuts between your palms to loosen the remaining skins and blow again; don’t worry if there are still some skins on your peanuts. Pick out and discard any nuts that are scorched and blackened.
Transfer the nuts to a wide bowl and set aside for 10 minutes or more to cool and firm up.
Once the peanuts are cool, place them in a food processor and process in short, sharp pulses, stopping after three or four pulses, before the nuts are too finely ground. You want a mix of coarsely chopped nuts and some fine powder. Alternatively, place the nuts in a large stone or terra-cotta mortar and pound with the pestle to crush them into smaller pieces. Use a spoon to move the nuts around occasionally; you don’t want to pound them into a paste, just to break them into small chips.
Transfer the chopped nuts to a clean, dry jar; do not seal until they have cooled completely. Store in the refrigerator.
tart-sweet chile-garlic sauce
[NGA YOKE THEE ACHIN]MAKES ABOUT 1¾ CUPS
A standard hot sauce on tables in Burma, this condiment for every occasion is hot, tart with vinegar, and a little sweet. If possible, make it at least a day before you first want to serve it, because when you make it the sauce will seem watery, but it thickens and the flavors blend after a day.
I reach for this sauce whenever I am eating rice or noodles, and I drizzle it over fried eggs. It’s also a great complement to grilled meat and deep-fried snacks. Once you have a stash of it in your refrigerator, you’ll never want to bother with store-bought Sriracha or other commercial hot sauces again.
1 cup packed dried red chiles
¾ cup water
¼ cup coarsely chopped garlic
¼ cup fish sauce
¼ cup sugar
¾ cup rice vinegar, or substitute apple cider vinegar
Break the chiles in half, break off the stems, and empty out; if you wish, discard some or all of the seeds. Place the chile pieces in a small pot with the water. If your garlic is somewhat dried out and harsh-tasting (in the winter months), add it too. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce the heat, and simmer for 3 to 5 minutes, until the chiles are softened and have swelled up a little. If your garlic is young and fresh, add it for the last minute of cooking.
Combine the chiles and garlic with their liquid, the fish sauce, and sugar in a food processor, and process or grind to a coarse paste; scrape down the sides of the processor bowl as necessary with a rubber spatula. Add the vinegar and process again.
Transfer to a clean, dry glass jar and store in the refrigerator, preferably for at least a day before using. It will keep in the refrigerator for several weeks.
In the large bowl, Tart-Sweet Chile-Garlic Sauce; in the jar, Fresh Red Chile Chutney.
FERMENTED SOYBEAN PASTE AND DISKS
If you are cooking for vegetarians or are interested in the repertoire of fermented flavorings, then you’ll want to explore these soybean disks.
The Shan pantry staple called tua nao, made of fermented soybeans, is sold in markets in northern Burma and northern Thailand, wherever there are Shan people. Tua nao are flat, thin, brown disks (friends in Thailand have heard them called “tua nao CDs”), sold in stacks of three, five, or ten.
Most people rely on cottage or village tua nao makers for their supply, but the process of making the fermented beans is not complicated—it just takes time. Soybeans are cooked in plenty of water, allowed to ferment for several days, and ground to a smooth paste. The fresh paste can be used as a flavor base in stir-fried or simmered dishes, or grilled or steamed and served as a topping for rice. But it doesn’t keep long without refrigeration, so generations ago the Shan figured out that the best way to preserve fermented soybeans was to dry them.
The paste is flattened into thin disks, which are placed on racks and air-dried for two or three days. Both the disks and the fermented soybean paste are sometimes called “Shan ngapi” by people in Burma; they give a depth of flavor (see “Umami,”) to all kinds of dishes, just as ngapi (shrimp paste) does.
Although the fermenting bacteria are different, tua nao paste is a close cousin of Japanese miso, which can be used as a substitute. It has a similar fermented salty taste, but its flavor is much stronger, so substitute 1 teaspoon miso for 1 tablespoon tua nao paste; fermented soybeans, available from Chinese groceries, are another possible substitute.
I’d seen tua nao disks for years and written about them in Hot Sour Salty Sweet, but it was only a few years ago that I learned how to make them. It’s a bit of a commitment, since you have to let the cooked beans ferment for several days, and rolling out the paste takes patience. Nevertheless, once you have a stack of flavor disks, it all feels worth the effort. And doing it gives an intimate sense of what it’s like to create your own flavorings for yourself.
The basic recipe is for plain tua nao disks. You can also add flavorings (ginger, lemongrass, sesame seeds, wild lime leaves, dried chiles) to your paste or your disks.
MAKES ABOUT 3 CUPS
The tua nao makers I know all let their cooked beans ferment in a rice sack, woven bamboo, or straw basket, so I use a basket. I assume it helps with fermentation. I have also left them in a little of their cooking water in a pot, and they fermented just fine.
½ pound (scant 1½ cups) organic soybeans, well washed
Spring water
About 2 teaspoons salt
Place the beans in a large pot, add water to cover by about 3 inches, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to maintain a gentle boil and cook, half-covered, until the beans are completely softened, about 3 hours. Remove from the heat, drain, and using a slotted spoon, transfer to a basket. Let stand, loosely covered in a basket topped with a cotton cloth, in a warm place (but not in direct sunlight) to ferment for 2½ to 3 days.
When you smell an agreeable, slightly sweet fermented odor, you’ll know you’re there. (If it smells bad or you see mold, discard the beans. I haven’t had this experience, but Mother Nature is sometimes fickle!)
You will have about 5 cups cooked beans. Working in batches, grind the beans to a smooth, thick paste in a food processor or a mortar. Add a little water as you grind the beans if you need to: I find I need to add a couple of tablespoons into the beans when using the processor. Transfer the paste to a large bowl.
Stir in the salt, allowing about ½ teaspoon salt per cup of paste; taste and add a little more salt if you wish. The paste will keep in the refrigerator, sealed in a glass jar, for about a week. Use it in cooking as a flavoring in place of shrimp paste; do not eat it raw.
MAKES ABOUT 40 SMALL DISKS (2⅓ INCHES IN DIAMETER)
You’ll need several heavy-duty sheets of plastic or flat plastic bags, such as Ziploc bags (as you would for rolling out corn tortillas), or else damp cheesecloth, as well as a large fine-mesh metal rack or a woven bamboo mat, or even a flat basket, for air-drying the disks.
These instructions produce disks that are about 3 inches in diameter, smaller than those sold in most markets, and therefore easier to shape and handle. Once you are comfortable with the process, you may want to work with a scant 2 tablespoons per disk and pat the paste out to a 4½-inch disk (which will dry to a disk just under 4 inches across).
Set the rack or mat for drying near your work surface. See the note about flavorings below and prepare any flavorings that you wish to try. Using a spoon, scoop up 1 packed tablespoon of the paste and turn it out onto one of the plastic sheets or bags. Press it lightly in the center with your lightly moistened fingertips to flatten it a little more. Lay another plastic sheet or bag on the flattened paste and tap it lightly to encourage it to spread out and thin. Go on tap-tapping until you have a thin disk about 3 inches in diameter.
Holding the disk in the palm of one hand, delicately, and without rushing, peel off the top plastic. Gently flip the exposed surface of the disk onto the rack and peel off the second plastic with great care. Repeat with the remaining paste.
Place the rack in the sun to dry; cover it loosely with a cotton cloth at night, or bring indoors. Let the disks dry until they are completely dry and light; timing will depend on the thickness of the disks and the drying situation. The disks will shrink as they dry and may crack a little. Alternatively, if you live in a damp climate, you may need to air-dry these on a fine-mesh metal rack in a 150°F oven.
Store stacked in a cool, dry place; a cookie tin is a good option. They should keep indefinitely.
NOTE ON FLAVOR OPTIONS: You can add flavorings to the soybean paste or disks. Options include dried red chiles, ground in a mortar or grinder; fresh wild lime leaves, finely sliced crosswise and then minced (see Glossary); sesame seeds; minced ginger or galangal (see Glossary); or a combination. Start by flavoring the paste disk by disk, to explore which combinations you prefer. Allow a scant ½ teaspoon flavorings per disk, and mix them in well before you start shaping it.
COOKING WITH TUA NAO: The disks can be used as a flavor base for curries and soups (pounded to a powder and combined with aromatics to make a flavor paste that is cooked in oil), or they can be lightly toasted (over a flame or in a dry heavy skillet), then pounded to a powder. Tua nao powder is an essential flavoring in a number of salads (see Chinese Kale with Pork Cracklings) and vegetable dishes (Simmered Cabbage, Shan Style); it gives a nutty toasted undernote. The moist soybean paste can be fried in oil as part of a flavor base in curries and stir-fries. It can also be wrapped in a banana leaf or in foil, grilled or steamed, then used as a condiment for rice.
In a basket at Hsipaw market, soybean disks (tua nao) sit next to some mint sprigs.
