The Best Beef Dishes are Paired with Umami

Have you ever considered why beef is typically served with tomatoes? Stews use tomato sauce, burgers use ketchup, stocks use tomato paste, spaghetti meat sauce is simmered in tomatoes.  Seems like tomatoes and beef go well together like peanut butter and jelly.  So what is the connection?

Well, it turns out that tomatoes have a taste that is associated with the taste of beef called umami. It is a general group of compounds that our tongues can sense and tomatoes just happen to help raise the awareness of beef.  It is similar to adding salt to a dish to raise the awareness of the overall flavor.  

But umami goes beyond salt.  Besides increasing the volume of flavor, it brings depth or broadens the flavor.  It makes things just more.  A grass fed beef burger patty becomes more beefy and pronounced. A slow cooked piece of braised beef short rib lasts longer on the palate.  A sense of beef goes from being noticed on one part of the tongue to all over the mouth as in enrobes its aura around the flavors of the entire dish. It becomes beef with stuff and not stuff with beef.  

Granted, tomatoes also bring acidity to brighten a dish. However, there are plenty of other umami bringing items to choose from to allow beef to play a starring role.  And cultures have their own go to ingredients that they prefer. Soy sauce is another excellent example.  Why add salt, when you can add salt with flavor.  Soy sauce is just that. It is umami packed salt in liquid form coming from kojified soy beans that have been sitting fermenting in salt water.  And with any solution, it is up to the individual to add other flavors if they wish to tweak the flavor.  There are soys with toasted wheat, soys with mushrooms, soys with chile peppers.  I prefer a mix of bay leaves, smoked dried chipotles, and black wood ear mushrooms along with toasted ground whole grain flour.   The overall home fermented soy is going to have a lot more punch and less is needed in a dish.  

That is where our orrechiette beef gets its base taste from.  A stir fry, of strips of grass fed regenerative ranched beef toss in house made soy sauce served with hard seared vegetables and wok hei orecchiette pasta. Because the grain in the soy was flour, it becomes a naturally thickening agent from the stach.  The jalapenos provide the heat, the alliums bring some background sweetness, and the tomatoes along with cider vinegar balance and brighten with acidity and compliment with that umami.  The ginger provides more aromatic and flavor profile.  All in all, this dish is meant to showcase beef, using umami to broaden its hidden potential and make a wonderful entree to a complete meal.

Beef and Root Vegetable Stew