from that," says Gramercy Tavern sous chef Aretah Ettarh. Developed, robust stocks are the foundation for countless dishes in cuisines around the world, and bouillon cubes and powders provide a certain level of accessibility to flavorful food for people without the skill, time, or other resources to make stock the "traditional" way. "A lot of the reason why they're used is because of the access, ability, and simplicity of using them," Ettarh says.
Food & Wine is partnering with Southern Smoke Foundation to help raise money for restaurant workers around the country who are in crisis. "Bouillon cubes have so much umami in them that it tastes a lot more interesting and more developed than some store bought chicken stock," Ettarh says. For curious cooks, they can be a gateway to understand that highly sought after fifth taste.
All of the chefs express wariness about the amount of salt and MSG often found in bouillon products. Adjepong even wrote his masters thesis on the use of Maggi cubes and its possible correlation with the rise of health issues like high blood pressure and heart disease in Ghana. "I don't want to knock it completely, because it does have some really great uses as far as flavor," Adjepong says.
Used in a perhaps more conventional way, Kumar likes to make concentrated chicken stock with carcasses from leftover roast chicken for a gelatinous base that "you can just dole it out in small quantities," she says. "You have something that's really potent, chickeny, and powerful. You know: low volume, high impact."for chicken or fish because "it imparts so much flavor.
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I recently made pot pies using homemade stock that were good. The next day I made another batch but added some bouillon and these were amazing!