Variations on Recipes?

Interesting, Paul. I have never used Maggi but routinely use soy and fish sauce. Perhaps I should give it a try?

I gather there are many versions - can you recommend a favourite?

Yet another umami-enhancer I forgot. I sometimes use a few drops of Maggi or Kitchen Bouquet (similar) to increase umami.

Making a little ham-bean soup (a variation on Senate bean soup) today to get rid of my ham bones in the freezer. Got out my Maggi to add once I'm done with my quick soak.

I vaguely remember... isn't there a grocery store product called something like "Bottled Amines" ? It's a very chemical-sounding name for a food additive.

Vegemite, the ultimate in umami

When I visited Oz, Barb, I came to like Vegemite once I learned its secret: less is more. Just a bit, spread thin on buttered toast!

You are absolutely right Robin, thinly spread is the way.. I think furriners might be led astray about portion size , either by mean Aussies or thinking in terms of other spreads.

My mum would rinse out the j to add to soups before the jar was discarded.

I vaguely remember... isn't there a grocery store product called something like "Bottled Amines" ? It's a very chemical-sounding name for a food additive.

Yes, there is. I believe the brand is Bragg's. And I believe I have a bottle of it somewhere. It's sorta like soy sauce. But I'm looking at a bottle of Bragg's Coconut Liquid Amines I have, which states it's a soyless soy sauce.

I haven 't used Maggi myself in my Thai cooking, so I've never paid any attention to which variant is on the shelves at the Thai market. There's a Thai variant of the same theme called Golden Mountain sauce that I use in some recipes. Those recipes say that you can use Maggi instead of Golden Mountain.

-Paul W.

I vaguely remember... isn't there a grocery store product called something like "Bottled Amines" ? It's a very chemical-sounding name for a food additive.

Yes, there is. I believe the brand is Bragg's. And I believe I have a bottle of it somewhere. It's sorta like soy sauce. But I'm looking at a bottle of Bragg's Coconut Liquid Amines I have, which states it's a soyless soy sauce.

Thank you, Larry. That's enough info to find it on Google: Bragg's Liquid Aminos. The original formulation is, essentially, soy sauce (though shaded a bit towards tamari).

A very unmusical name for a food product.

I varied a recipe just tonight: the recipe made enough beer-battered cod for 4 people and I scaled it back. Does that count?

I varied a recipe just tonight: the recipe made enough beer-battered cod for 4 people and I scaled it back. Does that count?

Hmmm. Might be stretching it.

I halve all the time, using my head to calculate the amounts needed. Now and again a cog in my brain slips and I put in the original amount of an ingredient. Then I wind up having to make the original amount. So I've found it's safer to write the new amounts next to the original ones. Ever happen to you?

Oh, yes. And often I'm applying a rationality test while I'm measuring the now-reduced amounts -- "Isn't that rather a lot of corn starch for a small dish?".

What do you do about halving salt? I think the salt ratio is not linear so I usually put a tad less in the halved recipe.

I normally use half salt as well because I adjust at the end anyway and can always supplement it to taste.

I do, too. But not for stuff like pancake batter.

I do, too. But not for stuff like pancake batter.

Agree - salting a pancake after it was cooked would be a bit odd.....the usual way for that would be to cook a quick test drop of batter and taste before finalizing.

I put in the half-salt.

Jeff wrote:

That's enough info to find it on Google: Bragg's Liquid Aminos.

By coincidence, I went next door today and saw a new wall-hanging pantry my neighbor built. While there, I watched him transfer spices, etc. to his new pantry. Behold the Coinky-Dink: a bottle of Bragg's Liquid Amines showed up on one shelf.

I saw Maggi bottles on restaurant tables over the far east but I never used them on my food because I understood it was basically MSG.

This on the web seems to confirm it.

In 1886, the Maggi company came out with a Maggi liquid seasoning, a dark-colored, vegetable protein-based sauce. Hydrolyzed vegetable protein is high in MSG, which is known to improve the taste of savory foods.

source (or sauce https://www.thespruceeats.com/maggi-spe ... nd-1446943

Interesting.

I took a look at a bottle of Maggi Seasoning that I have. It has: water, salt, wheat gluten, wheat, and less than 2% of wheat bran, sugar, acetic acid, artificial flavor, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, dextrose, caramel color. The MSG would be in the "artificial flavor." The disodium ingredients have a synergistic effect.

Glutamates are found naturally in foods we sometimes use to increase flavor, such as tomatoes, cheese, mushrooms, etc. Personally, I'm not particularly concerned about MSG--except when excessive amounts* are used to compensate for bad cooking. The so-called Chinese Restaurant Syndrome was pretty bogus, as was the "vaccines cause autism movement. MSG is considered by the FDA as GRAS (generally recognized as safe).

Whew, all that said, it's a matter of personal preference, IMO.

*One indelible memory I have is from many decades ago. I was eating at a Chinese restaurant and had to use their restroom. Propping open the restroom door was an empty 40-gallon drum of MSG.

Mark Bittman just published his list of substitutions:
https://www.markbittman.com/recipes-1/interchangeable-ingredients-list?rq=interchangeable