Your Chili Needs Fish Sauce, Yes It Does
Hello and welcome back to Skillet Chili Cook-Off. After the series started off with a super affordable, honest, seedless, seedless, beanless Texas pepper , we got a little more carried away with the creation of Instant Pot Umami Bomb Chili by Katie P.
This chili caught my attention for three reasons: it required fish sauce, it required monosodium glutamate, and it required my instant pot. The aggressive approach to the almost excessive amount of the pungent ingredients of the Umami Forward really liked me and I was not disappointed. I also love that this chili has both beef and pork because I love eating all kinds of animals. I have no reason to retype KatieP’s detailed instructions, so I’ll just leave a comment here and meet you on the other side.
KatieP didn’t lie guys – this chili is really an umami bomb. Fish sauce, cocoa powder, soy sauce, and monosodium glutamate give it a deep, super-meaty, layered flavor, while peppers add a little fruity warmth. This recipe is by no means complicated, but it is a little more complicated than our first one, and there are a few things you should look out for when preparing it.
First of all: the larger your Instant Pot, the easier it will be to do this. I have a standard 6 liter model and just didn’t have enough room to cook meat and vegetables. I had to remove the beef and pork from the Instant Pot after it was cooked, then add the peppers, onions, garlic and spices and cook until soft and flavorful, then add the meat again to complete the recipe. It ended up working, but I needed to grab a large bowl to hold the meat while I cooked the vegetables.
Second, when choosing meat, choose leaner ground beef. The pork will already provide a decent amount of fat, so your usual 80/20 will lead to some oily situation. You can also remove fat if you have 80/20. (Oh, and I thought the canned beans were good! Pressure cooking gave them a really nice creamy texture.)
Plus, you really want to create your mise-en-room with this. I thought I could be nimble and cook all my vegetables while the meat was cooking, but it was a stupid thing and I had to turn off the Instant Pot for a while and catch up. Read the recipe carefully, dice and measure everything before starting, and this chili is a breeze.
In terms of flavor, this chili is pretty perfect. All the words that we use when describing meat dishes – “savory”, “umami”, “deep” – you cannot overuse them when describing this chili. But given how many ingredients in the umami pack you use (tomato paste, soy sauce, fish sauce, and chili in adobo), I recommend adding monosodium glutamate carefully.
A small amount of MSG does go a very long way. I was too excited – I sprinkled them on the meat and then the chopped tomatoes straight from the shaker with wild enthusiasm. It ended up with too much, causing MSG to suppress my palate and numb the center of my tongue (something I experienced before when I went overboard with MSG). The fish sauce adds so much flavor and umami that it is almost a shame to shade it with too much MSG. I recommend adding just a couple pinches of MSG to the meat, and then adding more if you think you need it, at the very end, preferably after the chili has rested overnight.
Speaking of this overnight getaway: this is the key. Both that chili and Texas chili were 276% better the next day. The harsher aromas are smoothed out and relaxed, while the softer aromas come to the fore. That said, this chili was still pretty good, fresh out of the pot. Especially with the addition of lime.