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??
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?
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.
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?
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.
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
Amazing what one learns in 'the kitchen'?
So how are 'stock' & cubes any different??
Quote from: grawrc on August 08, 2006, 09:10:13
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
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?
Or dried potatoes versus the real thing? "Just add water" ;)
Arghh dried potato ...only good as a thickener in my opinion.
Never realised Bouillon Castle was in Luxembourg until you mentioned it ...
Quote from: Curry on August 08, 2006, 10:44:19
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
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??
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
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?
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
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 (http://www.kitchenbasics.net/pages/reviews/reviewPG.html)
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 ...
Or there again you get this:
http://www.goodnessdirect.co.uk/cgi-local/frameset/detail/555224.html (http://www.goodnessdirect.co.uk/cgi-local/frameset/detail/555224.html)
where the product is described simultaneously as stock and bouillon!
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
Quote from: Curry on August 08, 2006, 10:44:19
Never realised Bouillon Castle was in Luxembourg until you mentioned it ...
Boullion is in Belgium, in the Province of Luxembourg (not the country which also has a capital by the same name).
Most educative, all this!
I may have been too indistinct in my first post. My meaning, of course, was that all those are ingredients in one tin of stock.
I just can't figure the nuance.
Sorry Dandelion! My fault for misleading Curry. Haven't been there since my 25 year old was 3 so my memories are a bit vague. Hence the either or. In fact I'd forgotten that the province was Luxembourg but it's all rushing back now the ageing brain cells have been reactivated. ;) ;)
My apologies too! I should have added a :-\ at the end of my post, as I was uncertain whether it was Luxembourg the country, or Luxembourg in Belgium. Ah well, now we all know !!! :D
What's the difference in price ?
bet bouillon is pricier than stock.
???
of course!! ...it's "cuisine" innit??? ;D ;D ;D
haute even.
;D
Tim, now that really is confusing. I thought you were comparing different products. I await an answer as you do, but I suspect we're not going to get one.
Geoff.
Tim - you poor chap - you asked a simple question and haven't been given a straight answer. I don't think there is one. But I have heard Gordon and Nigel both recommend Marigold Vegetable bouillon powder for emergencies. You can get it in most supermarkets nowadays and it is quite good as a standby - far better than those cubes or bottles of concentrate.
Tim, sorry for the frivolous asides. :-[ :-[
Bouillon, like stock, is the liquid produced by boiling meat and/or vegetables in water. They are synonyms for practical purposes. Bouillon is not gravy but like stock gets used in the process of making gravies and sauces. Not to be confused with court-bouillon which is the liquid used for cooking fish. It is not soup except in the sense that the old-fashioned "beef tea" is soup.
Like others in this thread I prefer to make my own, however, I don't always have the time to make it so resort to buying powder, cubes or ready made liquid stock. My criteria for choosing are:
do I need beef, chicken or vegetable
which contains the least salt and/or additives
where possible I buy organic
I always read the packet before buying. (Come to think of it I'd probably be quicker making my own!! ;) ;D)
As far as I am concerned the use of the word "bouillon" by manufacturers to describe stock is an affectation - a marketing ploy to attract people who might think that they are buying a "classier" product when, in fact, they are simply purchasing stock.
Hope this helps! :)
Tim, I work on the "one for the pot, one for me" basis when adding wine to stocks. After a few glasses everything tastes great! ;D
And a couple of snipped-up anchovies add real depth of flavour.