The interesting thing about the umami taste is that it can be exponential. Salt, on the contrary, is straight addition; as you add more salt to your food, the salty taste increases. Umami works differently; as you combine ingredients with high umami quotients you can leverage the ingredients so that the umami-whole is greater than the sum of the umami-parts. That's grilling synergy folks. So we challenged ourselves to create the ultimate umami-burger. We started with the idea of adding fish sauce to the burger meat (we got this idea from www.whiteonricecouple.com). After that, we basically just piled on the umami-rich ingredients until the burger fell over.

Ingredients:

• Four pounds ground beef (ours was from Trails End Ranch near Nanton. If, like many of us these days, you're trying to eat more conscientiously whilst keeping a high level of deliciousness, you should check them out at: www.trailsendbeef.com )
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 Tablespoon black pepper
• 4 cloves garlic - crushed and mushed
• 4 Tablespoons fish sauce
• Grilled and sliced Portobello mushrooms
• Cooked bacon
• Some high-umami cheese. We used Asiago as it has a high umami factor (similar to parmesan) but melts relatively easily
• Some vegetables to make the burger look pretty.

Directions:
 
Lay out your ingredients.


Mix the fish sauce, sugar, pepper and garlic in with the ground beef and let it sit for about half an hour.


Start your barbecue. Form the ground meat into patties and put them on the grill. Grill on medium high until the burgers are finished.


Layer your burger with your various umami ingredients: mushrooms, cheese, burger, bacon and enjoy. This is a very tasty recipe. Fast, easy and everyone loved the burgers. 'Just like umami used to make.' Trust me on this: you cannot taste the fish sauce. The burger just tastes...'better'. Not fishy, not Vietnamese, just better. Try it - you'll like it.