Name: Bring more flavour to your cooking – think “Umami”! (with Chicken Broth recipe)
Ingredients: chicken: 1 medium; carrot: 1 medium; celery: 1 stalk; onion: 1 medium; parsley: 10 sprigs fresh; thyme: 1/2 teaspoon dried; bay leaves: 2; black pepper: 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground; water: 4 liters (16 cups) cold

Ingredients

	Chicken Broth (makes 10–12 cups)
	1 medium chicken carcass (chicken bones from a store bought rotisserie chicken will make a broth higher in sodium)
	1 medium carrot peeled and cut into big chunks
	1 stalk celery cut into big pieces
	1 medium onion cut in quarters (leave the onion skin on; it gives the broth a golden colour)
	10 sprigs fresh parsley
	1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
	2 bay leaves
	1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
	4 liters (16 cups) cold water

Nutrient Analysis
PER SERVING: 1 cup RENAL EXCHANGE: 1/2 Vegetable
Calories	13Kcal
Protein	2g
Carbohydrates	2g
Fibre	0g
Total Fat	0.1g
Cholesterol	n/a
Sodium	53mg
Potassium	155mg
Phosphorus	40mg

By Céline Quintin, P.Dt.

The fifth taste

As humans, we can taste sweet, salty, sour and bitter. But there’s a fifth taste called umami – discovered by Japanese scientist Professor Ikeda. The word comes from the Japanese language and means “delicious taste”. This is a general term for a pleasant taste of broth or meat which results in a lasting and tasty sensation covering the entire tongue. It produces salivation, while improving the sense of taste and stimulating the appetite.

There are many natural ingredients in some foods (particularly glutamates and nucleotides) that create umami flavour.

Umami-rich foods are easy to find

Many common foods are rich in umami. Fish, shellfish, shitake mushrooms, ripe tomatoes, Chinese cabbage, spinach, and asparagus contain umami, as does green tea.

The pairing of foods rich in umami enhances the umami taste sensation. For example, a soup combining leeks and carrots (rich in glutamic acid) with chicken broth or veal (rich in nucleotides) creates a umami flavour. Cooking and fermentation are methods of food preparation which bring out the substances that provide that satisfying umami flavour.

Less salt needed

The use of ingredients rich in umami means we can use less salt. In fact, it has been shown that using umami-rich ingredients allows you to reduce salt by 30% without changing or sacrificing the taste.

How to enjoy… potatoes?

Combining ingredients which are rich in umami increases the pleasant taste… and here’s a recipe that is a great example of a mix of ingredients that are umami-rich. The result is a broth which is also tastier and less expensive than any chicken broth you can buy in the store. You can easily freeze the broth in small portions or ice cube trays for future use.

Source: Kidney Friendly Cooking: for people with chronic kidney disease, 2015: reproduced with permission from Canadian Association of Nephrology Dietitians. The cookbook can be purchased through www.renalrd.ca

Ingredients

Chicken Broth (makes 10–12 cups)
1 medium chicken carcass (chicken bones from a store bought rotisserie chicken will make a broth higher in sodium)
1 medium carrot peeled and cut into big chunks
1 stalk celery cut into big pieces
1 medium onion cut in quarters (leave the onion skin on; it gives the broth a golden colour)
10 sprigs fresh parsley
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
2 bay leaves
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 liters (16 cups) cold water

Preparation

1 Done	Combine all ingredients in a large stock pot and bring to a boil.
2 Done	Reduce temperature and let simmer for four hours. From time to time, with a skimmer, remove the gray foam that appears on the surface of the broth.
3 Done	Filter the broth with a sieve. For a clearer broth, you can add cheesecloth or a coffee filter to the sieve. Discard the remaining ingredients.
4 Done	Let cool 30 minutes, then refrigerate for a few hours to form a layer of fat on the surface of the broth. Remove the fat from the cooled broth.
5 Done	Divide the broth and freeze in containers, if desired.