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Ready-Made Umami
Appears in
By Ole Mouritsen and Klavs Styrbæk
Published 2014
It is quite possible to take a shortcut and make a good soup with a great deal of umami by using one of the many ready-made vegetable-based bouillons that are available in liquid, solid, and powdered form. The first mass-produced commercial product of this type in Europe was made in about 1870 by Knorr, but the one that has become iconic is the famous Maggi cube.
No matter whether one starts with basic raw ingredients to make a stock or works with an elaborately prepared foodstuff like katsuobushi or the readily available concentrates and powders for Asian and Western soups, one is relying on identical principles for enhancing taste. One might say that a soup is where the umami orchestra plays a whole symphony, often with perfect synergy between substances that complement each other.