R&D: On the Edge of Flavor -- November 2008

As any good cook knows, tinkering with the flavors of a meal is what makes it unique. One person’s ribs or pot roast, for instance, will not be exactly the same as their mother’s or next-door-neighbor’s--even when using the same recipe. Home-quality flavor is something most people expect to find--at home, naturally. Home-cooked, delicious and savory flavors, most would agree, cannot be found in a plant--at least, not until now.

Kraft Food Ingredients Corp. (KFIC) offers formulators solutions for this challenge with a wide variety of home-cooked flavorings that was recently highlighted at IFT in New Orleans. Utilizing KFIC’s innovative Flavors of Cooking® and Kraft® Cheese products, recently named chef Justin Young has helped KFIC’s culinary team create innovative, culinary applications that dovetail with current food trends.

One ingredient of note is Savory-Edge™ Enhancer for Beef, a patented breakthrough technology that delivers juicy, meaty and rare notes to any beef application. Falling under KFIC’s Flavors of Cooking line, Savory-Edge Enhancer for Beef is an allergen-free, natural flavor that has the ability to offset warmed-over beef flavor, as well as “livery-grassy” notes found in lower grades of beef. It does this by enhancing the desirable, savory notes of beef.

The new, patented flavor is built on a multi-phase reaction process with oil, water, air and other enablers that make the addition of multiple flavor dimensions possible. The Savory-Edge technology is similar to culinary flavor layering, in that its continuous reaction process and air-rich environment allows for authentic flavor replication.

Moreover, as local, organic and natural trends increase, there likely will be increased grass-fed cattle, with the problem of “grassy” off-notes not present in prime, corn-fed beef. Savory-Edge allows for the use of grass-fed beef without sacrificing authentic, savory flavor.

Also highlighted by KFIC’s chefs at IFT were ethnically inspired appetizers and hand-held street foods--both hot trends that reflect consumers’ desires for smaller portions and on-the-go eating. As with restaurants, the portionable snack industry is being influenced by emerging flavors and unique ingredient combinations, such as Crispy Parmesan Polenta, made with KFIC’s Creamery Exceed Plus® and Fancy Shred and Grated Parmesan Cheese blends; or Chorizo Spiced Braised Chicken Thigh with Savory Cabbage, made with Chorizo Type Flavor and Spicy Velveeta® Cheese Sauce Mix.

At IFT, KFIC showcased its Hi-melt, innovative cheese ingredients in such applications as Little Cubans--mini-sandwiches topped with Restricted Melt Swiss and American Cheese Sauce; and Cheddar Cheese Sliders--mini-gourmet burgers made with Hi-melt Old English™ pasteurized process Cheddar cheese dices.

Cheese can add flavor, texture and functionality to convenient, bite-sized applications--whether it is an ethnically inspired street food or a hand-held appetizer. The culinary team at KFIC is dedicated to helping food formulators meet the challenges of creating innovative, culinary applications using a broad range of value-added ingredients.