Bouillon, etc

Yes, but one must realize that after about the first 5 or 6 ingredients (water, salt, mirin, sugar, soy sauce), everything else probably accounts for less than 5% of the product (by weight), so it’s literally a dusting considering the weight of a liquid (like water) versus a dry ingredient like MSG or Bonito extract.

While working in a commercial kitchen, I was able to sample many bouillon and bases.

I like Minor Bases.

I picked up some more of the reduced sodium BtB chicken base, and took a second to read the ingredients in the Knorr cubes. Sugar! Palm oil! I’ll stick with the BtB.

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Minors still makes a clam base that’s available on Amazon. I really like Minors’ bases but have never tried the clam.

Amazon results are decent (87% 5- or 4-star) and of the 1-star reviews, 9/14 were complaints against the shipper sending them poorly packaged goods or stuff nearly expired (the remainder of the 1-star reviews were “too salty”).

I’ve always used Penzey’s bases but they’ve priced themselves out of my budget. I did get a turkey base recently for Thanksgiving when they had a 20% off special. To the poster that has their Seafood base, it makes a great Shrimp Etouffee and kept in the freezer seemingly lasts indefinitely. Costco has a good price on BTB, chicken and beef, and I’ve been using it to enrich homemade stocks.

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Thanks. I’ll try it.

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I use BTB beef for a hot roast beef sandwich gravy if I do not have beef stock in the freezer. I amp it up with a browned buttery roux and a bit of Sherry. My Thanksgiving gravy is same roux, sliced oyster mushrooms in lieu of giblets, vegetable broth, and more Sherry (vegetarians in the family).

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If you need a vegan gravy then I thoroughly recommend trying this excellent recipe:

Despite what the title page says, it’s not Jamie Oliver.

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I wonder how much sugar is in that wee cube.

Apparently not much sugar in the Minor’s clam base (which was the topic where you quoted me), assuming by cube you mean the amount to make a cup of broth. Label indicates carbs < 1 g and sugars < 1 g per serving.

Knorr cubes (which Ernie was discussing) also says carbs < 1 g per serving. They don’t specify sugar content on their nutrition label but it also must be < 1 g.

I don’t know how and to what extent a labeling item “< 1 g per serving” is regulated. Pretending it might be around 0.5 grams, then in a 5 gram serving that could be as much as 10% total sugar content.

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I guess Knorr has more than one chicken-flavored cube. I looked up the ingredients online, and they’re very different from what I saw at the store. Sugar and palm oil were the first two, followed by MSG and some kind of chicken flavoring. Online, I find the first ingredients to be chicken powder and salt, not very different from BtB.

Interesting - what I saw online is similar, with oil and sugar way down on the list.

But then I look at what WalMart is selling and it has the palm oil as #2.

And weirdly, this listing for the one product at Target has two images of the ingredients label and they don’t agree with each other as to whether palm or oil or MSG are #2.

That WalMart label is what I recall seeing at the store.

I bought this today to fortify tonight’s Stroganoff.

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I have powdered chicken boullion that is used in a few Asian dishes. I add a bit to my finger scallion oil, and it adds a nice savoriness to the gingery sauce that is fantastic.

I also have taken to sitting a bit in my shishito peppers when I cook them. Coat in olive oil, and then I sprinkle with a bit of the boullion and powdered Sriracha seasoning that I found.

Dashi I mix a tiny bit with water and use when I sauteed cauliflower. May sound weird but I love it.