You’re missing the best part: MSG bombs. That’s their sole purpose, to me. MSG for people too shy to say they’re using MSG. (And there’s more flavoring than just sugar and salt. There’s usually a very strong onion/garlic type component in it as well. And what kind of fancy pants bouillon cubes are you buying where they’re $3 a tablespoon? :eek:
Here, yes, but with the recipe coming from Japan it would pay to be sure. Consider Japanese “spats” or “mansions.” as an example.
Would you actually substitute salt and sugar for a bouillon cube? Yes, I’d prefer to make my own bouillon or stock but sometimes I run out and I don’t always have time to make more so I’ll pull out a bouillon cube for umami flavor.
In addition to salt and MSG, Knorr Beef Bouillon cubes contain umami flavors from hydrolyzed vegetable protein, beef fat, beef extract, and autolyzed yeast extract. The cubes also contain other flavoring from dehydrated vegetables and citric acid. This may not be the world’s highest quality food product but it’s a shelf stable beef stock substitute that works tolerably well in a pinch. It is an imperfect solution for an imperfect world. It is about 1000 times better than what you imagine bouillon cubes to be.
And I don’t think that a single spoonful works out to a $3 cost .
A package of eight cubes cost $0.89 at target.com.
At Walmart a 35.3oz jar of powdered Knorr chicken/beef bouillon costs $4.88. The entire jar contains about 83 tablespoons of bouillon, working out to a price of just under six cents per tablespoon. Like I said, what kind of fancy-pants bouillon is one paying $3 per tablespoon for? Even Better Than Bouillon works out to just thirty cents per tablespoon. There had better be gold bouillon in that $3/tablespoon bouillon!