Make your own bouillon cubes and jumpstart your home cooking
Let’s start this holiday season by cleansing ourselves of a dark secret. Pushed deep into the shadowy corners of our family’s cooking traditions is a truth so scandalous, a truth so painfully hard to face, that we hide it from kith and kin.
We surreptitiously conceal emptied jars and wrinkled wrappers beneath the kitchen trash, attempting to camouflage our shame, while unaware that we share this scandal with bonnet-clad grandmas, Brady-esque moms, and the majority of cooks across Europe, Asia and Africa.
The dark truth is that most of us use the concentrated and compressed magic kitchen dust known as a bouillon cube.
Bouillon cubes are often vilified in the current American food scene. They are seen as a shortcut for cooks who are far too eager to replace the grand, noble process of simmering animal parts and vegetables for hours upon hours with the convenient mediocrity of unwrapping a cube of instant flavor thanks to the miracle of modern food science.
But this idea that breaking out a bouillon cube represents some shameful Faustian bargain struck between the cook and the devil isn’t completely fair, and the idea that they are a modern invention is simply wrong. Do bouillon cubes represent the best we have to offer in this age where cooking knowledge and skill are progressing at a rate previously unseen in human history?
Absolutely not.
They are mostly salt, held together with a bunch of starch that has just enough dried vegetable powder, dried spice and meat-flavored crystals to give it a rumor of flavor. But just like karaoke and yoga pants, there’s a time and place for everything—including the much disparaged bouillon cube.
Professional chefs have been using them for centuries. André Soltner, dean of the International Culinary Center in New York and one of America’s first celebrity chefs adds them to stocks or soups if he feels like “the taste needs a little nudge” and legendary chef Marco Pierre White spent years pimping the virtues of Knorr cubes, just to name a few. Even Escoffier made his own bouillon cubes!
The precursors to today’s dried bouillon cubes were the “pocket soups” and “veal glews” of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. These recipes were time consuming and complicated, requiring the cook to stew, strain, and simmer strong veal stock for hours, “till by ye steam ye jelly grow of a glewish substance.” This “glew” was then dried on cloth until it became a leathery paste that could be carried in a small tin.
Various attempts at developing this idea further were attempted throughout the 18th and 19th centuries until Swiss entrepreneur and self-professed clairvoyant, Julius Maggi produced the first commercial bouillon cubes in 1908, with his distinctive Bouillon Kub to be quickly copied by Knorr in 1912. (Maggi’s Bouillon Kubs were so iconic they even appear in Picasso’s “Paysage aux affiches”).
If you want the convenience of a bouillon cube without the thiazide chaser, I recommend you take a day off and make your own. Get all the flavor with none of the guilt.
Start by making a big batch of your favorite homemade stock. A rule of thumb is that one gallon of stock will reduce to about one cup of liquid bouillon.Allow the finished stock to cool overnight, skim off any fat that has risen and congealed.
Place the pot of stock on the stove and set the temperature so that it comes to a fast, but not rolling, boil until about half reduced.
Once half-reduced, lower to a simmer until the stock reduces again by half and thickens into a lush sauce. It should coat the back of a spoon, and cling to it, looking glossy and rich. It should be about the consistency of hot maple syrup. Be careful as the stock reduces past about 1/3 reduced—it can quickly over-reduce and even burn if you don’t keep an eye on it as it finishes.
Cool the sauce by using plastic wrap to line a pan large enough for the reduced stock to fill to the height you want your cubes to be (Want 2” cubes? You need a 2” deep layer of stock). Pour the cooled sauce into the pan and place in the refrigerator overnight. The sauce will set like jello.
Flip the gelatinized stock onto a large, flat surface, peel off plastic wrap and cut into squares. Put the squares into ziplock baggies or jars. Your bouillon will keep in the refrigerator for up to two months or in the freezer for up to one year.
Mike McJunkin is a native Chattanoogan who has traveled abroad extensively, trained chefs, and owned and operated restaurants. Join him on Facebook at facebook.com/SushiAndBiscuits