Peptides from fermented tofu make salt taste saltier

Abstract

Sufu is a traditional condiment in Chinese cuisine, often added to dishes like stir-fried vegetables or rice porridge. To make sufu, tofu is fermented with a fungus and then brined with salt and alcohol, producing a white, cheese-like product with a creamy texture and a rich, floral flavor. Researchers have been studying the compounds that make up sufu’s unique flavor for decades. Now, inspired by a study on fermented fish sauce, a group at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong has identified peptides in sufu that could enhance salty flavors when added to other foods ( J. Agric. Food Chem. 2021, DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.1c03431 ). The researchers ground up freeze-dried samples of store-bought sufu, used a specialized membrane to filter out likely taste peptides, and used a combination of chromatography and mass spectrometry to isolate 11 peptides suspected of being mainly responsible for sufu’s flavor. The