This week’s newsletter celebrates healthy, umami-loaded foods, and offers some free umami-packed recipes that feature mushrooms!

🍽️ Are Umami-Heavy Foods Healthy?

🍽️ A Vegan Mushroom Panang Curry for the next Rainy Evening

🍽️ Fermented Foods Ranked #1 Superfood for the Sixth Year in a Row!

🍽️ Sauteed Mushroom Medley with Green Peppers and Tamari!

Healthy News Dose

Are Umami-Heavy Foods Healthy?

This past September, National Public Radio provided an excellent summary of the history of umami, and its slow acceptance in Western cultures. 

The author notes the origins of the word “umami” stem from the research of chemist Kikunae Ikeda in Japan, who was able to isolate glutamate from seaweed, which is a food source that is incredibly rich in this tasty compound.

In fact, high concentrations of glutamate can be found in many other foods we utilize in the kitchen, such as:

• Mushrooms

• Tomatoes

• Cured meats

• Beef

• Seaweed

• Miso

• Kimchi

• Aged cheeses

Are all of these foods good for our health? Clearly, eating too much cheese, beef, or cured meats would be problematic. But perhaps we might benefit from eating more mushrooms, tomatoes, and seaweed-based broths and soups!

Want to try the 30-day challenge? Click here to get started!

The Cooking Corner

A Vegan Mushroom Panang Curry for the next Rainy Evening

Mushrooms are packed with umami, and delivery meaty, rich flavors to any dish. In this example, mushrooms are slowly cooked with onions, garlic, and spices. I typically serve this on top of a cooked grain.

For this recipe, I rely on the use of a prepared Panang curry paste, which can be found at most Asian grocery stores, or online.

Ingredients: 

• 3 Tablespoons sunflower seed oil

• 2 Tablespoons Panang curry paste

• 1 large white onion, medium dice

• ½ red bell pepper, cut into bite-sized chunks

• 3 cloves garlic, finely minced

• 32 oz (2 lbs) mushrooms, whatever mix you like

• 1 can coconut milk

• ¼ cup peanuts, finely chopped

• 3 Tablespoons black sesame seeds

• 2 teaspoons Kosher salt or Tamari, or more, to taste

• Zest of 2 limes

• Juice of 2 limes

• ½ cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped

• ¼ cup fresh parsley, finely chopped

• ¼ cup fresh chives, finely chopped

• A few fresh cilantro leaves, as garnish

• Lime wedges, for serving

Instructions: 

1. In a Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot, add the sunflower seed oil and increase the heat to medium-high.

2. When the oil is hot, add the Panang curry paste, and stir and cook the paste with the oil for two minutes.

3. Add the diced white onion, along with the red bell pepper, and cook for an additional four minutes, while stirring.

4. Add the minced garlic, and the mushrooms, and cook for an additional two minutes.

5. Add the coconut milk, peanuts, black sesame seeds, and Kosher salt or Tamari, to taste.

6. Cook the curry at a simmer for about fifteen more minutes, or until the coconut milk begins to split.

7. Add in the zest of two limes and the juice of two limes.

8. Turn off the heat, and stir in the cilantro, parsley, and chives.

9. Serve with a few fresh cilantro leaves on top, along with some fresh wedges of lime!

Fermented Foods Ranked #1 Superfood

Today’s Dietitian published results from a survey of over 750 registered dietitians on the most popular Superfoods for the year 2023!

As you can see from the charts, “Fermented Foods”, such as yogurt, pickled, kimchi, & kombucha tea made the top of the list for the sixth year in a row!

If you want to access our yogurt making kit to start making your own gut-friendly yogurt at home, click here!  

We also offer a course and cookbook explaining how to make yogurt, with an amazing set of unique recipes to try at home! The cookbook and course are available here 

And if you want to take control of your health and start making fermented foods at home, our team has created a fermentation course and cookbook with dozens of recipes, tips, and tricks to help you GET STARTED FERMENTING TODAY!

Chef’s Word of The Week:

Have you heard the term, “chiffonade” in professional kitchens? “Chiffonade” refers to a specific fine slicing method, usually reserved for fresh herbs such as mint, basil, or parsley. If your chef asks you to add “chiffonade basil” or “chiffonade mint” to a dish, they simply want you to add in some very finely-sliced basil or mint.

To cut something “chiffonade” like a pro, consider an example with basil, where you have twelve basil leaves, removed from the stalk:

Place the largest basil leaf on the bottom of the pile, and then neatly stack the remaining basil leaves on top of this largest basil leaf on the bottom. Roll the entire stack of leaves up tightly, like you might imagine rolling a cigar. And then slice the tightly-wrapped leaves as finely as possible.

Upgrade Your Plate…

With Sauteed Mushroom Medley with Green Peppers and Tamari!

I worked with a butcher named Ricky in Massachusetts who claimed that green peppers only belong on pizza—period. I made this dish with mushrooms and green peppers yesterday, and kindly agree to disagree with my buddy.

For this week’s Upgrade your Plate section, a medley of mushrooms are simply sauteed in some olive oil with green peppers until the peppers are cooked.

Some tamari is added towards the end of the cooking process, along with a tiny sprinkle of white granulated sugar and a squeeze of fresh lime juice.

You can add oyster sauce to impart a shinier appearance and thicker sauce consistency, although it’s not necessary (and not vegan!).

And that’s it for this week, folks! If you have cooked something awesome lately, let me know.

Feel free to reach out and send me your thoughts on additional topics you wanted to see included in subsequent newsletters down the road.

That’s all from me this week! Catch you later 😉 

Don’t forget to say hi in our lovely Facebook group!

Andy G

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