Bouillon/Stock

It's good to understand when discussing stocks and bouillon where the flavor and textures come from.

In meats, flavor comes from fatty acids, fats, some sugars (glucose) and some salts. In vegetables, things tend more toward sugars and complex carbohydrates.

The process of creating Bouillon cubes, powders and store stock bases clearly removes or filters out a lot of these flavor and texture constituents. That is why home made stocks prevail over them. BTB's processing may not avoid such depletion of flavor and texture content, either. Their ingredient label for the Chicken BTB (low sodium) shows 0 Fat, 500mg Sodium and 1g added sugar (not natural sugar content). So, in the end, BTB is a fabricated Bouillon with some alterations to keep it semi-liquid and not dry like cubes or powders and not highly filtered and diluted like store stock bases, but processed and adulterated to seem better.

I still have yet to try BTB, but my analysis still favors home made stocks.
 
flyinglentris said:
It's good to understand when discussing stocks and bouillon where the flavor and textures come from.

In meats, flavor comes from fatty acids, fats, some sugars (glucose) and some salts. In vegetables, things tend more toward sugars and complex carbohydrates.

The process of creating Bouillon cubes, powders and store stock bases clearly removes or filters out a lot of these flavor and texture constituents. That is why home made stocks prevail over them. BTB's processing may not avoid such depletion of flavor and texture content, either. Their ingredient label for the Chicken BTB (low sodium) shows 0 Fat, 500mg Sodium and 1g added sugar (not natural sugar content). So, in the end, BTB is a fabricated Bouillon with some alterations to keep it semi-liquid and not dry like cubes or powders and not highly filtered and diluted like store stock bases, but processed and adulterated to seem better.

I still have yet to try BTB, but my analysis still favors home made stocks.
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If you have the time and necessary ingredients to make stocks from scratch, great. Things like BTB are work for me because I don't generally have a chicken carcass and a whole day to make stock for a recipe that calls for two cups of stock.

I've made stock and frozen it, but it takes up way too much space in my freezer.

Sometimes, what is ideal is not practical.

CD
 
I reduce my stock to about 20% freeze it in ice cube trays. When frozen I remove from the tray and store in freezer bags. Excellent for portion control and storage.
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caseydog said:
If you have the time and necessary ingredients to make stocks from scratch, great. Things like BTB are work for me because I don't generally have a chicken carcass and a whole day to make stock for a recipe that calls for two cups of stock.

I've made stock and frozen it, but it takes up way too much space in my freezer.

Sometimes, what is ideal is not practical.

CD
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I fully understand this and you hit on the very reason that I went looking for Bouillon in the first place.
 
Regarding my first use of BTB. I tried a teaspoon straight up and found it very agree-able. Using it for the Recipe Challenge Chicken Soup entry was a good choice.
 
I love bouillon, it comes super handy when you don't have time or didn't bother to keep the scraps of veggies to make broth. The problem I have with the current options (I have to say all over the world) though they're all beef, chicken or veggie, there's no variance.

I'd love to see shrimp or spicy version, or made of mediterranean herbs for example to add to a simple tomato soup. This is a shared interest apparently so someone opened a paid market research on the topic here (I asked for spices!).

I am hopeful :) Oxo, Knorr and others will hear this request and produce interesting flavours for us!
 
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To me, the benefit of btb is that it doesn't take up as much space in the fridge. It's more of a backup than anything else, it can't stand up against homemade stock when it comes to flavor or nutrition, and when I just need a splash of stock here and there, I find the tetra packs more convenient.
 
Bouillon is basically a broth, usually cleared by using an egg white, and strained relentlessly until clear.
When my bro worked at a hotel, he used to dump all the veg peelings, beef bones, scraps of beef, etc. into a huge vat at about 11pm, fill it up with water, season, and leave it cooking on minimum heat until the morning. Then it was strained until absolutely clear. I imagine he roasted the beef bones beforehand, because he was trained as a French chef.
Occasionally, I´ll make veg stock ( or chicken stock) if I´m preparing food for a party or an event, but usually I can´t be bothered, and use a cube.
I still remember very clearly attending a Gaudy dinner, where 7 courses were served, each with a different wine pairing. The first course was Consommé a la Reine, which was a consommé with bits of crepe floating in it. It was served with a 1928 sherry, which my professor said was not to be drunk, but rather poured into the consommé.
What a waste!:laugh::laugh:
 
In my professional career I specialized in sauces, so it will come as no surprise that I use the home made variety. I've used cubes and liquids in my distant past but I prefer making stocks from scratch. I understand the convenience and if it makes little difference on a personal level then that's a perfectly good reason to use them.
 
karadekoolaid said:
I still remember very clearly attending a Gaudy dinner
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You must have attended a posh University. Nothing like that at Portsmouth Uni!

karadekoolaid said:
Bouillon is basically a broth, usually cleared by using an egg white, and strained relentlessly until clear.
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My question: is bouillon the same as consommé? I thought bouillon was the broth before its clarified. I call bouillon 'stock' which may also be incorrect.

BTW, I reckon you should persuade your brother to join CookingBites. :)
 
garlichead said:
In my professional career I specialized in sauces, so it will come as no surprise that I use the home made variety. I've used cubes and liquids in my distant past but I prefer making stocks from scratch. I understand the convenience and if it makes little difference on a personal level then that's a perfectly good reason to use them.
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I think I would if I had the ingredients to hand. Indeed I have in the past. But right now I rarely have anything resembling meat bones around the house. I do make vegetable stock from scratch though. Having said that, Marigold bouillon is an excellent off the shelf vegetable stock.

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Morning Glory said:
You must have attended a posh University. Nothing like that at Portsmouth Uni!



My question: is bouillon the same as consommé? I thought bouillon was the broth before its clarified. I call bouillon 'stock' which may also be incorrect.

BTW, I reckon you should persuade your brother to join CookingBites. :)
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You have that right, a consommé is a clarified bouillon.
 
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