Bouillon Cubes

They’re not exactly cubes—they are, rather, thinnish squares—but these dried morsels of concentrated beef or chicken essence pack a lot of flavor. Although it’s long been known that our ancestors, both in the New World and in England, made something similar—called “pocket soup,” because travelers could carry the makings of broth in dried form—it hadn’t occurred to us to reproduce it until our friend Barbara Kafka pointed out the feasibility of further dehydrating beef essence (or chicken extract, for that matter) to make “cubes” with a minimum of further labor.