Sunday Brunch, fermenting and the 6th flavour ‘kokumni’

Posted on May 25, 2016

Sunday BrunchThe first weekend of May saw aqua kyoto’s Executive chef, Paul Greening, appear on Channel Four’s Sunday Brunch. Paul cooked one of his favourite dishes, suckling pork belly with scallops and jade oil.

Paul has a passion for fermentation and his recipe highlighted this with lacto fermented garlic leaves. This process can take up to six weeks, but these garlic leaves can go with a number of other dishes , so don’t worry it is worth the effort. When fermented, these leaves have a clean, sharp flavour that is excellent at cutting through rich dishes, and can be used instead of a touch of vinegar in a recipe. Paul and his team use it in the restaurant with the King crab and handmade soda noodles dish.

Another unique element to this dish is kokumi, the 6th flavour after umami, meaning ‘rich’ in Japanese; it is the combination of the pork and the scallops that creates this richness. Kokumi is often found in fats and meats and has been described as “mouthfulness”, “thickness” and “heartiness”, some say it is more a sensation, than a taste you get on your tongue. At the beginning of 2015 a scientific journal ‘Flavour‘ wrote in depth about the research being done into this 6th flavour – so we predict to see more of kokumi inducing dishes on London menus!

You can watch Paul on Sunday Brunch here.

Paul Sunday Brunch - BLOG

Suckling Pork Belly with Scallop, Root Vegetables and Jade Oil 

Serves 2

Ingredients

For the lacto fermented garlic leaves (pickling)

500g garlic leaves

30g salt

For the stock

2 litres dashi

2 pieces of kombu

60g bonito flake

For the katsuboshi butter

200g butter

Handful of Bonito flakes (or tablespoon of hondashi powder)

For the jade oil

Selection of green herbs blanched (I use fir needles), add 200ml grape seed oil and blend in blender, allow at least a couple hours before straining (even better a day)

For the pork belly

150ml white soy sauce

1/2 chilli green

15g ginger

1x piece suckling pork belly

225g white miso

600ml cooking sake

100g mirin

130g white sugar

2 pieces of star anise

15g shiitake mushrooms (dried)

4 garlic cloves

1/2 a turnip

4 baby carrots

2 tablespoons unagi sauce

Method

For the lacto fermented garlic leaves (pickling)

1. Bruise the leaves and salt, place in jar and allow juice to cover leaves.

2. Top up with a little bottler water if needed and allow to ferment. May take up to 6 weeks, though taste it until you feel the flavour is tart, as this will be the lactic acid.

For the katsuboshi butter

3. Melt together the butter and Bonito flakes into pot

For the stock

4. Make the dashi stock by combining the dashi, kombu and bonito flake.

For the pork belly

5. Add 1 litre of dashi stock to a pot with the miso paste, stir and add white miso, cooking sake, mirin and sugar and whisk until dissolved

6. Add in star anise and dried shiitake mushrooms and add in pork belly, cook until tender (usually about 2 hours)

7. Take pork out, strain stock and allow pork to cool

8. In remaining dashi stock add chopped turnip and baby carrots until cooked (3 minutes)

9. Caramelise pork skin with the katsuboshi Butter in pan and add scallops to caramelise on one side

10. Put onto metal tray with pork and glaze scallops with unagi sauce and into the oven to 2 minutes or until cooked (200 degrees)

11. Bring out of oven, cut pork

12. Present pork with scallops, root vegetables and add 200ml broth, drizzle with jade oil and add lacto fermented garlic leaves to dress dish