Chilli: 'We sometimes blanch pepper eight times to get the balance of flavours just right,' says Robert Ortiz, head chef at Lima in London. Photograph: David Levene for the GuardianSometimes flawed questions are worth asking just for fun. Such as this: what is the single, most flavoursome ingredient? It's a silly question, of course, in that taste is largely subjective, and involves ridiculously complex psychological and physiological toings and froings. We know that flavour perception comes through a complex web of sight, smell, taste, touch and sound, so which food pushes the most sensory buttons in the most broadly appealing way? I conducted a straw poll among some taste experts and chefs to find out.
They have it all, says Gail Vance Civille, president of Sensory Spectrum a consultancy specialising in consumer sensory experience. "The single most impactful ingredient in the mouth," she says, "is a chilli that imparts lots of heat (to the point of pain), some sweetness, some saltines, perhaps some sourness and bitterness." Robert Ortiz, head chef at Lima in London singles out the Peruvian rocoto pepper. "It has a vibrant colour and hot citrus flavour, which can be transformed by cooking into a mellower spiciness," he says. "At Lima we sometimes blanch the pepper eight times to get the balance of flavours just right." He recommends rubbing a deseeded wedge into fish or vegetables to add an extra dimension. "Blended with oil or mayonnaise it makes a tasty sauce for salmon or scallops," he adds.
In Samantha Clark from Moro's opinion, chillies come a "close second" to the salted anchovy. "For me it really hits the umami spot," she says, "and it goes well with almost anything savoury – fish and meat and brings vegetables (both raw and cooked) alive." Both salt and umami tend to have great impact, says Vance Civille, "and enhance the perception of other tastes and olfactory sensations." Chef and food writer Matt Tebbutt is also an anchovy champion, and both he and Clark are sticklers for a high-quality fillet. "There is nothing worse than a slightly stale fishy anchovy in bad oil," says Clark.
John Hayes, assistant professor of food science at Pennsylvania State University, says garlic "makes almost anything better", and Vance Civille declares it "another winner – especially raw". She breaks it down for us. The aromatics are "green, sulphurous, cabbage, skunky [yes, skunky] and oniony". The tastes are sweet, sour, bitter and salty, and then we get a "good amount of" heat sensation.
After flirting with coffee and roasted peanuts, Niki Segnit, author of The Flavour Thesaurus, says those ingredients would be hard pushed to beat the sensation of a piece of chocolate liquefying in the mouth. "On the basis of flavour complexity, balance of taste and quality of texture," she says, "a decent bar of chocolate might be considered the tastiest ingredient."
The luxurious dissipation, she says, is down to the high content of cocoa butter, which has a particularly low melting point. As the chocolate melts, the flavour compounds are released: "chocolate contains hundreds," she says, "partly thanks to the fact that it is roasted and fermented." Taste-wise, chocolate is bitter-sweet, "although some kinds, particularly milk chocolate, are also sour to varying extents". Salted chocolate, which is increasingly common, not only adds the taste of salt, but salt also enhances sweetness. But one of the notes, she says, that makes chocolate so delicious, can also work with healthy ingredients. "If anyone thinks they don't like cauliflower, brussels sprouts or kale, I'd urge them to try them roasted before writing them off entirely."
Few foods say summer like a perfectly ripe peach – championed by Tebbutt and Arnaud Bignon, chef at The Greenhouse restaurant in London. He says the vine peach an "amazing product", from its velvety skin, to the intense sweet-and-acidic juice burst. "The after taste will be so long," he says, "that you will remember the peach all day."
Ben Tish, chef director of Salt Yard Group, which owns Dehesa, Opera Tavern and Salt Yard says parmesan is a no-brainer. "It has all the flavours, including umami, salty and sweet. Texture-wise I love its softness when warm and hardness when cold. And the best parmesan has amazing crystals that add another crunchy layer of texture." Tebbutt was also toying with picking parmesan, and the lauded Italian chef Massimo Bottura gets pretty gushy about it. It is not just a cheese to him but "a living, breathing portrait of our Emilian landscape, part of our DNA and the cornerstone of the Italian kitchen. The ageing process guarantees a great range of flavour and texture from the same product – for example a 24-month-aged parmigiano and a 48-month-aged parmigiano offer different sensations, emotions and possibilities in the kitchen."
"A Chateau Lafitte, Chateau Margaux or a Romanee Conti," suggests Prof Barry Smith, co-director of the Centre for the Study of the Senses at the University of London. Of course, different cultures value different senses more, he points out, chewing over my question (take the Chinese, for whom it's all about texture). But Smith settles on the wine because one of the best, multiple triggering of the senses comes when, he says, you drink "an extraordinary wine with heady aromas, beautiful ripe fruit, fine tannins and balancing acidity to give structure, and a velvety mouth feel." I'll have one of what he's having.
Someone had to say it, didn't they? This time it was the turn of Jacob Kenedy, chef and co-owner of Bocca di Lupo and Gelupo, and he's a really good cook. "There is one single ingredient, without which all food, and life itself, would be as bland as wet cardboard," he says. "When cooked without it," he continues, "great chefs' souffles fall as dramatically as empires, custards split, roasts burn and loaves fail to rise." Is he not confusing it with concentration, or skill? Anyhow, I'm going to disqualify this one because you can't buy it in a supermarket.
Do you agree with any of the above? What else would you nominate?
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