Flavor Enhancers

BY HELEN WU, PHOTO BY PINN CHIRATHIVAT

Flavor enhancers are ingredients with chemical compounds that intensify the natural flavor of your food. Unlike traditional spices, which impart a specific flavor, flavor enhancers bring the extra oomph to your dish without overpowering or altering its natural flavor. Even sparing additions during and after your cooking process can go a long way.

PURE UMAMI

Of the five tastes, umami is the most elusive and subtle of them all. Usually appearing alongside stronger flavors, it is hard to pinpoint the taste of umami. This special flavor is the chemical compound monosodium glutamate, or the highly stigmatized “MSG” common in Asian cuisines. Despite our aversion to scary sounding chemicals in food, many studies have shown that MSG is perfectly safe to eat— plus, it imparts a subtle and almost meaty flavor to your dishes, without actually adding meat. MSG is a foundational flavor enhancer that can be purchased in its “pure” form at most supermarkets and Asian grocery stores. You can use it just about anywhere you would use salt— for stir fries, meat dishes, soup, anything your experimental cooking desires. For most dishes serving four to six people, half a teaspoon will suffice.

Other Tips and Tricks

Before glutamate was identified and isolated to be sold commercially, cooks were already using umami-rich ingredients. These may be ingredients that you have unconsciously been adding to your dishes, such as dried tomatoes and mushrooms, parmesan cheese, nutritional yeast, etc. Fermented foods have a very high glutamate content that will achieve these similar effects. Try fish sauce, a liquid made from fermented fish and salt. It is extremely popular in South and Southeast Asian cooking, making it perfect for stir fry dishes, Asian carbs, and curries. Another recommended ferment is miso paste, which is made from fermented soybeans. Use in soups, broths, you know the drill. Many grocery stores sell bite-sized items that you can plop into your dishes and elevate your cooking. Bouillon stock cubes, curry cubes, and other condensed and compact sauces can transform a flavorless boiling pot of water into a deliciously thick curry or broth in minutes. They are easy to store, have a shelf life of several months, and provide a mindless way to make flavorful soups and stews without boiling bones or whole chickens. An underrated way to add a meaty or seafoody flavor to your soups and broth without using bones or meat is to boil water with kombu (dried seaweed) and/or dried anchovies. The result is a clear and subtly flavored broth Good news: Asian grocery stores sell these ingredients in pre-made tea bags! Don’t forget one of the easiest ways to enhance the flavors of your dishes, which is to balance seasonings. A dash of salt to accentuate the sweet of a cookie, or an acidic squeeze of lemon on a fatty steak. These are the bite-sized techniques that will make the most profound changes in your cooking.

JOHN & KIRA’S CHOCOLATIERS

As a small business, John & Kira’s involves a core crew in each step: from creating each chocolate to packaging and shipping them off. Their products are lovingly handcrafted with a great deal of intention and artistry to make each bite PHOTO & COPY BY DHIVYA ARASAPPAN feel like magic. Chocolate. Honey. Caramel. Bees. Imagine sinking your teeth into a thin airbrushed with stripes of yellow and black cocoa butter to resemble a bumblebee, antennas and all, making This past month, I had the chance to speak over the phone with Sara Miller, Nora Alek, and head chef Angela Sticco. 62% Valrhona dark chocolate shell that these chocolates, if I do say so myself, the cracks to release a strand of silky golden bee’s knees. salted caramel perfect for any caramel John & Kira’s, a Philly-based small lover. But this isn’t just any caramel—it’s business, is responsible. They specialize been infused with a locally sourced and in all types of artisanal, hand-made fragrant honey that truly puts it on top. chocolates from their signature raspberry I could eat that caramel by the spoonful, Ladybugs to chocolate figs filled with a no doubt. But what brings it home is the whiskey-infused dark chocolate ganache. beautiful interplay between the chocolate They also have an impressive selection of shell that beautifully cuts the oozing ganaches, which have been infused with caramel center. delicate flavors including lemongrass, Of course, these Chocolate Honey Papohaku Farm ginger, fresh mint Caramel Bees aren’t just a taste for the and strawberry as the cream is heated tongue—they’re a sight for your eyes and mixed into milk or dark Valrhona too. On the outside, they’re carefully chocolate.

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

I saw a little bit about the fall selection as well. A lot of pumpkin— can you talk a little bit about your more fall themed flavors? Sarah: The pumpkins are a spiced caramel—like a fall spiced caramel. It’s made with a dulce chocolate which is a white chocolate that is toasted to give it a caramelized depth. The white chocolate is a milk-based and cocoa butter so it’s that toasted milk flavor. And then that’s blended in with the caramelized sugar to get a really velvety sort of texture. So

it’s not like, super gooey like the ways our bees are really free flowing, and then some of the other caramels are like, much more dense but these are like, I don’t know... They’re perfect. So that’s in a dark chocolate shell and then it’s painted with a colored cocoa butter to look like a pumpkin, and then usually Angela— sometimes someone else is talented enough to do it—they pipe the chocolate stems in a green colored chocolate on top. Nora: It’s nice because it gives us that individualized, hand-stamped feel on every piece of chocolate. This is kind of a big part of the way our chocolates are presented—each piece is handcrafted. The other thing I should mention is our Autumn Leaves Trio. And those are a 62% dark chocolate shell and they are filled with three different varieties of milk chocolate ganache, which is also maybe worth noting because a lot of our chocolate is either dark, or it’s like a blend of dark and milk or praline or whatever. But these are like one of the few boxes that has just milk chocolate ganache inside with a brown butter flavor, a maple bourbon, and a chai tea. And then they’re just painted with a light metallic fall tone. And those are also delicious, delicious. Sarah: Also with the pumpkins, usually someone will have to be practicing their stems so the odds that there’s going to be ones that aren’t going to be good enough to box that have to be tasted tested and eaten—that’s something I look forward to.

What are the popular seasonal chocolates that you have for the winter? Anything new this year? Nora: For the new items, we have two really exciting chocolates for this year— we have the meltable ornaments and they’re doing ganache ornaments that melt once they’re heated up with your choice of a mixer. So they turn into a hot chocolate and those are really fun and interactive… We’re all just excited about this ornament because it’s a totally new thing for us. And then we’re also doing truffles this year which will be really really interesting to have that as well as the Peppermint Pinwheels that are coming back. We have the Enchanted Forest Trio, and also the Snowflakes that are our seasonal chocolates. The Snowflakes are my personal favorites—they’re praline so for anyone that likes hazelnuts and pistachio and pecan, those are the ones.

[Angela Chicco, head chef, pops in to join the conversation] Hi Angela! I’d love to ask you a little bit about your process and, you know, your inspiration for designing these chocolates.

So I’ve done a fair amount of traveling and so definitely taken a lot of inspiration for things I’ve seen and things I’ve eaten in other countries and just my travels over all. A few years ago, I went to Ecuador to visit a plantation and see how the chocolate was produced and it really opened my eyes to how intricate

everything is. It almost feels like the more I learn, the more I start to wonder how this ever works. When people eat a piece of chocolate they have absolutely no idea what went into making that get here. And so many steps have to go right for things to end up correct.

That’s really neat! Can you tell me about your citrus and white chocolate collection and doing something a little different with that? We wanted to do something with citrus, basically, and then I started thinking about how citrus and white chocolate go really well together. We don’t do a lot with white chocolate. Mostly because we never—honestly I never really had one that I actually liked. And so I wanted to make a box, to make a whole collection that kind of showcased that white chocolate in particular because I don’t normally really eat white chocolate and this one was really special.

Angela on milking cows in the chocolate making process... So did you hear about how I milked the cow? That was crazy. That was an experience. Basically this small town in Ecuador is where they get all of their milk from. The cocoa beans come from there. Everything comes from right around this little village and everything just seemed like so—it was just so special to actually be there and meet the people that are doing these things. I just felt like I had to come up with some way to use it. Can you talk a little bit about how you come up with your ideas for flavors? A lot of times when we actually come up with things, it’ll just be an idea. In the kitchen, we’ll just talk about things and be like “Oh citrus, we don’t do anything with citrus.” Last year, we launched the Chocolatier’s collection. It kind of started with me just thinking about how we don’t really talk enough about the actual chocolate that we’re using. And so I wanted to just come up with a few things that showcase more of the depth of flavor in each chocolate. So for that box it really just started with me thinking like okay I want to do something with a plain dark chocolate ganache with a really really special dark chocolate and nothing else in it, so that you can really taste the flavor. So that’s one of the pieces I’m talking about is called Guanaja. It just started with me really liking that chocolate and then figuring out a way to use it. And then it became ok well what else can we put in there? It ended up being called the Chocolatier’s Collection and that’s kind of how the idea starts—we just sort of talk about things and throw different flavors around.

With a small business, like John & Kira’s where the entire chocolate making process is done in one place, what’s the trial and testing process like? The process and actually testing the recipes is very complicated but actually the bare bones of it is pretty simple when you think about it. I come up with a formula for making it and we taste it. And then it’s just a constant going back to it to taste it again to see how it develops. Chocolate is really hard to test with because things have to crystallize for a long time so it’s never just like doing something, and tasting it in one day and doing several variations in one day, that never works. We do not do gigantic batches of things, but we do fairly large batches when we’re making things in actual production. So to test things, I have to try to do it in the same way that we will be making it in actual production. That means if a piece is airbrushed, it has to be airbrushed, and then shell molded and filmed on the first day. And then the second day, we tap it, and knock it out the mold. And so when I’m testing things I have to stick to that timeline. Otherwise, I’ll never really know how the product can change. So that makes it difficult, having to wait like two to three days to figure out if I like something.

How did you enter the world of chocolates? What drew you to this? It was a journey. I went to culinary school and then I finished that, and I wanted to learn more about pastry and mostly bread and chocolate. I didn’t want to go back to school because honestly, I couldn’t afford it because I was already an adult and I had to work. So I found a way to go to France, and basically learn without having to pay. So I did an apprenticeship there for a few months and I lived for the French family. And I worked with them. I worked for free in their place and I also lived with them. I did that for a few months and I loved it. And I made some chocolates there and a lot of bread. And I just realized like ‘oh my god, I think I’m better at things that take time to make.’ I’m very meticulous

and detail oriented, and a lot of the stuff we do with chocolate, it’s almost like a meditation. That sounds so silly, but it really is true. You just have to be able to stand there and do something for a long time, or wait for something for a long time. After that, I came home and I worked for a small local chocolate company that since then went out of business. But I helped the owner kind of get it off the ground. And then, I worked for a couple other places in Philly and then I ended up living in Italy for a few years. And I started to learn a lot more about specific ingredients like chocolate, cheese, bread and wine and these are all made the same way, especially wine and chocolate are very very similar. So then when I came home I was just like “what am I gonna do with my life? I don’t know what to do but I want to explore these things that I was learning.” So, I found an app for John and Kira’s on Craigslist. It was a seasonal position. I started in August. I was supposed to leave in December. And that was ten years ago. When I came here, I just really learned like I actually really love this and I think I’m good at it. I’ve just stuck with it.

So how have things changed over these 10 years for you?

So much. I’m still learning everyday. Chocolate is endless, the amount that you learn. I think that’s why I like doing it, because it’s never ending the amount of things you can do. I mean, so much has happened to John and Kira’s. Oh my god. The product line has expanded like—it feels like five times what we were doing when I came here. And I learned a lot about myself, and like, how I can somehow persevere through really really difficult things. I think at this point, I just keep going because I actually do love it.

Could you tell me about your favorite chocolate?

Okay. Currently, the thing that I love here that we make is the cappuccino piece in the Chocolatier’s Collection. And I was looking at them the other day and I really love the flavors. The way it looks on the outside and the way it looks on the inside, I did it intentionally because I want it to look like a cappuccino. The outside is airbrushed half white and half goldish color. The inside is half white chocolate ganache, half espresso ganache. Just the bitterness of the coffee and the chocolate and then there’s the little bit of sweetness from the vanilla ganache inside. I don’t know it’s just been a really, really well rounded flavor.