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Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Editor's Choice: Better than Bouillon

Flavorful stock is the base for many recipes, from risotto to paella to soup. I used to use those little dried out squares that you had to dissolve in warm water and didn't taste like much more than salty sand. After trying Better than Bouillon from Superior Touch, I will never again use a tiny dried square to flavor savory dishes.

The Better than Bouillon comes in glass jars that need to be refrigerated, and contain a creamy colloid of reduced stock made from...chickens or beef or veggies! You just scoop out a serving and throw it into whatever you are making. It becomes part of the dish effortlessly, without needing to dissolve, and there is no need to add water, if you don't want to. Just the bouillon.

What makes them different from the chicken stock I make myself, when I can be bothered to slave over a hot chicken carcass for a few hours, is they have no fat. They are also lower in sodium with 1/3 less salt than ordinary bouillon. That lower sodium thing in a big deal in my house where everyone is watching their salt intake. This is a painless way to lower sodium intake at a base level, and we don't even miss it, because this bouillon is so flavorful.

My mom makes the best mashed potatoes in the world. One of her secrets was to throw a beef bouillon cube into the potatoes when they were boiling. Now that I have turned her onto this product, that comes in a dizzying variety of flavors (beef, chicken, au jus, vegetable, clam, turkey, mushroom, ham, fish, chili and lobster) she just puts a little Beef Bouillon in the potatoes and that's that. And they are even better and more tasty, as if that were possible. This product has kicked my cooking up to another level, and a healthier one at that.

-Elizabeth Dugan