Star chef and TV star Alexander Herrmann: This is how every dish gets umami

He is one of the most popular top chefs in Germany. The 54-year-old is a restaurateur in the fifth generation. In the family-owned Posthotel in Wirsberg, Upper Franconia, Alexander Herrmann, together with Tobias Bätz, runs the two-star restaurant "Aura", the connected Future Lab "Anima", where new preparation techniques and taste experiences are developed, as well as the bistro "oma & enkel". In addition, he runs two other restaurants in Nuremberg and the dinner tent "Palazzo" — and the kiosk at the Wirsberg outdoor pool. The Franconian delights his numerous fans, among other things, in the TV shows Aufgegabelt and The Taste.

How do you explain umami to someone who has never heard of it before?

I would describe umami as a kind of volume control for taste. It is not really a flavor of its own. Umami makes a dish more savory, spicy. Imagine you are listening to a song. If you put a lot of umami into a dish, it's like turning up the volume knob. It makes the dish more intense, stronger, fuller.

Isn't it a big challenge, especially in top-class cuisine, to ensure that other components are not overshadowed by umami?

They are usually not whitewashed. But if you overpower it with too much umami, then you can't eat it anymore. It's like turning the volume knob too high. Then you no longer hear the song, just noise.

Read also

Umami: What is behind the mysterious taste?

As indescribable as it is pleasant: Umami means something like "simply delicious" and is considered the fifth taste quality alongside sweet, sour, salty, and bitter

This is how a dish gets umami flavor

Which ingredients immediately give a dish umami?

The classic is of course soy sauce. There is also a German product with an umami flavor - Maggi. The Japanese would probably behead me for saying something like that: But Maggi has the same effect.

What other examples are there?

Maybe let's start the other way around: Umami is primarily caused by the salts of glutamic acid. Foods have varying amounts of this glutamic acid. The moment you start maturing, fermenting, drying, or even brewing a product, glutamic acid starts to develop properly.

Good examples of this are Shiitake mushrooms. When they are dried, they have a lot of umami. Or Parmesan. Just the Parmesan rind contains a lot of umami. In some Italian cookbooks, it is recommended to cook the Parmesan rind when preparing a minestrone. When you remove this rind afterwards, it looks like a limp chewing gum. But in this way, the glutamic acid has been cooked into the broth. Ripened tomatoes also have umami because they are naturally endowed, or even sauerkraut.

© Freepik

Parmesan rind contains a lot of umami.

Is glutamic acid actually the same as glutamate?

There are parallels. But it's different whether the glutamic acid is in food that is fermented or matured or whether I sprinkle chemically produced glutamate over a dish.

Chemical glutamate has a pretty bad reputation.

Yes, it is suspected, among other things, of promoting Alzheimer's. The sugar substitute aspartame is said to have a similar effect.

Have you ever used Maggi for cooking?

No, for heaven's sake! Should I tell you when I tried Maggi for the first time in my life? That was on a cooking show by Johannes B. Kerner, about 10 years ago. Meanwhile, I even have a bottle at home – my wife bought it a few years ago.

Alexander Herrmann: My favorite spices

Which spices do you always have on hand?

Bread spice. For me, this is the curry of home, it can give a regional dish an immediate twist. And organic lemons. I use the zest or the juice of the lemons. Acid does a lot for a dish. A very important ingredient for seasoning for me is nut butter: Let the butter brown and add a spoonful or two to the dish. It's a true flavor booster.

Flavor enhancer in book form: "Aura & Anima" by Alexander Herrmann and Tobias Bätz. 512 pages, 89.90 euros

Also in your new book „Aura“ Umami plays a role. What was the idea behind this work?

Through our Future Lab Anima - Anima means soul - our star restaurant Aura has a very special character. Our food scout Joshi works with almost 100 farmers and collects not only regional but above all seasonally perfect food.

For example, plums that only grow in a single Franconian village, a special type of cherry that can only be harvested within a window of ten to twelve days. Then we have to think about how to store these foods. Some are ripened with salt following the Japanese model, some in sugar. We work with the most diverse fermentation and ripening techniques.

That sounds like a culinary research department, like those known from the New Nordic Cuisine and the world-famous Noma restaurant.

Exactly. In this way, we have developed our own expertise, unique tastes, and foods over the past 15 years. In this book, we disclose the most secret recipes of our Future Lab - and also how we process them in our star restaurant.

Read also

Jan Hartwig: How to cook three stars?

Jan Hartwig, high-flyer of German gastronomy, on challenges in the kitchen and the ingredients of his extraordinary success