Need an Expert on this.

[tim]

CHICKEN STOCK - the tinned stuff. Quote:

Water
Chicken Bouillon - containing water?
Chicken Stock - containing water?
Vegetable Bouillon - containing water?

So what have we got? What is the difference between this & a stock cube - at 1/10th the price?

Can you, the expert, differentiate or elucidate??

[tim]

[Hyacinth]

The diff. between any of them & the real thing made with roasted bones, etc. (for lamb/chicken/beef) is great & unmistakeable....but SO simple to do & freeze if you want? So why sweat the small stuff, Tim?

[euronerd]

In full agreement Alishka :) Stock cubes to me are just an expensive way of buying coloured salt. Tim, my theory is, bouillon is a posh sounding foreign word which allows some manufacturers to exploit the uninformed by flogging them coloured water. My own trick for chicken is, if I may, cook some legs in a slow microwave until just cooked, pull the meat off and freeze, for things I need bits of cooked chicken for. Then I boil up the bones for ages till i have a concentrated stock, and strain into those ten-for-a-quid polyprop containers from the pound shop and freeze. They'll pop out of the containers easily when frozen, to stack nicely. Of course any bits of chicken will do, I only mention legs because they are the only bits of chicken I buy in any quantity. If you just want stock, and no bits of chicken meat, you could buy a load of wings and boil them up instead.

Geoff.

[tim]

Indeed - & I, too, do the real thing. Usually with wings, but sometimes with the stock from a whole chicken + veg & herbs.

What I can't figure is the difference between stock & bouillon. And how do either differ from a diluted cube which, presumably, is dehydrated stock?

[Chantenay]

I am no expert but  Larousse Gastronomie says: "Bouillon - French term for stock or broth".
I make my own stock too - but I do forgive the emergency use of Marigold bouillon, as it seems,  do many chefs.

[grawrc]

Bouillon is simply the French for stock.  Godfrey du Bouillon on the other hand was a mediaeval knight with a castle somewhere in Luxembourg or Belgium? He led the first crusade. :P

[tim]

Amazing what one learns in 'the kitchen'?

So how are 'stock' & cubes any different??

[Hyacinth]

  Godfrey du Bouillon on the other hand was a mediaeval knight with a castle somewhere in Luxembourg or Belgium? He led the first crusade. :P

An ancestor of OH.....oh!la-la ;D

[Curryandchips]

Fresh stock? Cubes? Surely the difference can be seen on the same lines as home grown tomatoes and those red things sold in supermarkets. Fresh stock is a live thing, different every time it is created, but always yielding those subtle tastes and aromas which we recall so readily?

[grawrc]

Or dried potatoes versus the real thing? "Just add water" ;)

[Curryandchips]

Arghh dried potato ...only good as a thickener in my opinion.

Never realised Bouillon Castle was in Luxembourg until you mentioned it ...

[bennettsleg]

Arghh dried potato ...only good as a thickener in my opinion.

Yergh! Wouldn't even use it for that! For thickening it's cornflour or if there's time, beurre maniere - a flour/butter paste that's whisked in causing thickening with no lumps. Oh, and a cholesterol hike! ;D

[tim]

I know I'm labouring this.
I know that I would use fresh if I had it.  But there are times when you need it now!
Just trying to sort out the difference between stock & bouillon in a tinned 'stock', & how either differs from a cube (which is 'dehydrated stock') diluted??

And what, for that matter, is the essential difference between 'convenience stocks':
1. A cube.
2. A powder.
3 A liquid - like Knorr's 'Touch of Taste'?

Or am I boring you??

[Squashfan]

Tim, if I need it right away (I'm never organised enough to freeze my own stock), I chuck in water and a good glug of wine! Makes lots of  things taste better, IMHO.  ;D

[tim]

Just to drink it would make you feel better?

But then again, after my 1/2 bot at lunchtime, I maybe wouldn't notice the difference?

[grawrc]

Perhaps it is worthy of a proper scientific study? Same recipe, same ingredients, different varieties of stock (cube/powder/liquid/home made) and bouillon - as above? With tastings to see if there is any discernible difference? I'm sure Alishka could organise it? ;) ;D ;D

[Curryandchips]

Not boring, definitely, but I am unsure whether there are answers. No doubt there have been surveys at times, but nothing that I have come across.
You might find this article interesting though ... not that it provides any specific answers.

http://www.kitchenbasics.net/pages/reviews/reviewPG.html

[Curryandchips]

Mentioning adding wine to stock, I also do that to gravy (which is only really thickened meat stock). I have some parsnip wine which is coming out to taste like a pleasant sweet sherry, I must experiment in the kitchen with this too. I think stir fries would benefit ...

[grawrc]

Or there again you get this:
http://www.goodnessdirect.co.uk/cgi-local/frameset/detail/555224.html
where the product is described simultaneously as stock and bouillon!

[valmarg]

Well, I've looked in my Oxford guide to the french language, and the translation of bouillon is ' bubble' (aliment) broth.

Whether you care to translate this as soup or stock, is neither here nor there.  As Monsieur Shakespeare said (en anglsaise) a rose by any name would smell as sweet (and probably taste the same)!!

valmarg