Umami: inosinate and guanylate

So we all know about glutamate and MSG. I'm sure that most of us are familiar with foods that are high in free glutamate... fish sauce, kombu, tomato paste, Parmigiano-Reggiano, soy sauce... all umami bombs that I love to add to savory dishes. And sometimes I shortcut the "whole foods" approach to umami reach straight for my container of Accent brand MSG. But what I don't know much about are inosinate and guanylate, the two unsung heroes of umami. What foods are naturally high in these compounds? Does anyone out there add straight-up disodium inosinate or guanylate to their recipes? What are your favorite tricks to up the umami quotient of your dishes?

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Comments

Matt_67991

For one thing, I know Doritos are naturally high in inosinate and guanylate.

Brendan_Lee_56950

They both have E numbers but from what I have read they are very expensive additives which is why you don't see them on their own typically. My chemistry skills are relatively weak but it seems like it's a very complex process to synthesize the two chemicals so i would imagine that you would have a hard time finding specific foods that are high in the specific compounds. They seem to be very closely tied to glutamate so you'd probably still be reaching for the same natural sources unless you want to shell out for the pure compounds themselves.

coryhansen78

I've used dried shiitakes to good effect for this (they have a lot of guanylate and don't taste too mushroom-y, in my opinion).

Somewhat-related paper with a few interesting ideas:

http://www.flavourjournal.com/content/1/1/4

Also, on the overall subject of boosting umami, the star anise and onion thing works pretty well (I don't remember the science of that one though-- not sure if these nucleotides play a part or not)...

Brandon_Byrd_40557

Nice. I've been using dried shiitakes to build broths for a while now. I'm actually just about to strain some turkey stock that's built on a shiitake dashi. I also do the anise/onion trick, but not with poultry stock. Anyone tried that? I figure that the "anisey-ness" would probably overpower the flavor of more delicate proteins.

Brandon_Byrd_40557

Ha! I'm sure they are, but I don't consider anything about Doritos to be natural.

Brandon_Byrd_40557

From what I understand, these compounds amplify the taste of glutamate but I'm not sure if they have much of a flavor on their own. The synergy between them and glutamate is relatively well documented, but I can't find much about how they taste or behave in isolation.

com-chefsteps

This thread broke open the "what foods will my wife eat?" lock. I knew it wasn't just glutamate... damn doritos.

coryhansen78

Yeah, I (over?)did the anise on a pressure-cooker blond chicken stock once. The results were not pleasant.

Seth_Ratner_91225

Looks like they are more rare than expensive.

http://store.theingredientstore.com/disodiuminosinateanddisodiumguanylatepowder16oz.aspx

Please don't start adding these to recipes... my meth lab doesn't need expanding right now!

HammeredChef_DEFINITELY_does_NOT_work_at_22134

amen

Julia_Button_528143

I know this is super old, but I was puttering around on the internet looking for this myself and noticed no one really answered your question. I found a decently helpful table here; http://www.molecularrecipes.com/molecular-gastronomy/umami/ and a pop science breakdown of a few common basal and synergistic pairings (I like the graphic chart) here http://www.popsci.com/hidden-secrets-umami.