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Many of the sauces I wish to make require broth or stock. I quite fear the preparation which requires lengthy cooking and dedicating more precious storage space for the finished ingredient. Is using store bought broth or stock a good alternative? How close does it come to the real thing?

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All excellent information, but can I answer bluntly: none of them come even CLOSE to the real thing. Once you use fresh stock, you will never, ever go back. Really. Making stock is easy, cheap, and as said above, unattended time. Stock forms the base of the kitchen, once you have it, you will notice the taste of everything you make improve so much. Get some bones (most butchers will give the away for free, just become friends) cold water, bring to boil, throw away the dirty water, start again with fresh water. This saves you the trouble to skim the grey foam, which is the white blood cells and other bitter tasting substances. It is also much more effective as skimming. And it results in a clearer, better tasting stock. When you do it, you will see what I mean straight away. I even rinse the pan Add onions and celery, and basically all the cut-offs of all your vegetables. pepper corns, bay leaves, unpeeled garlic cloves, whatever you like. You dont need to peel the onion. The fuller the pan, the better the stock.

On your storage problem: two solutions. Big restaurants do not store, they just have a big pan boiling night and day. Small scale: after a hours or a night of slow boiling or so, remove bones and veggies. Cool. When fat is solid, remove and use this for frying: fried taters, etc.

Now boil down the broth, really down to say 20 percent. You have a demi glace now. Put it in ice cube trays, and freeze. When frozen, remove, and put in bags. You have now concentrated fresh stock that takes up no space, and you can use in any quantity you require.

Please try it. Again: NOTHING comes close to the real deal.

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    Thank you for clarifying. It wouldn't hurt to update your answer with more details on why this is done and what exactly you do mean (for those unfamiliar with it).
    – ErikE
    Jan 14, 2016 at 21:21
  • Do you not add salt at any point in that process? Jan 14, 2016 at 22:15
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    @ToddWilcox In my opinion, non-saltiness is one of the big advantages of home made stocks. They can be reduced without becoming too salty. They can be added to other ingredients that already bring enough salt. If you do need to add salt later, it dissolves easily in hot stock. Jan 14, 2016 at 22:32
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    The question here was how close storebought things come, not how to make stock. And I'm not sure that a sweeping generalization of not even close is really that helpful; there's a huge range, and plenty of things are reasonably close, especially when you're using them in something where you taste other things way more than the subtle stock flavor. I'm not saying it's wrong to choose to only use homemade stock - go for it if you want - but I'm not sure this is really a great answer to the question that was asked.
    – Cascabel
    Jan 15, 2016 at 6:47
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    I think it is, sorry. I think any other answer to this question other than: "not even close by a mile" is an incorrect answer or slightly elusive answer. If you think some alternatives come reasonably close, well, de gustibus non est disputandum, but I havent found them, and I doubt they exist. Fresh stock is the one thing that makes good restaurant food so delicious. And because the worries of the OP were work and storage capacity, I addressed those too. I think my answer, together with GdD's answer is the complete answer to this question.
    – Marc Luxen
    Jan 15, 2016 at 10:05
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There's a great deal of variation in the quality of the pre-made stocks you get from different sources, so there's no clear-cut answer. Here's the types you might find:

  • Stock cubes: these are dehydrated stock, or sometimes just chemicals meant to taste like it. It's the lowest quality option. There's a lot of variation here, I've found some brands (knorr for example) to be better than many others, but still not close to the real thing. I rarely use these
  • Stock powders: similar to cubes these are loose rather than cubed powder stocks. The advantage of them over cubes is they dissolve much faster
  • Gels: these are more recent, they are super-concentrated stocks in a gel format. They come in little mini tubs, you peel the lid off and squeeze/spoon the contents out. I'm not sure these have made it over the pond to the US yet. They are IMO much better than cubes or powders and closer to the real thing, and I use them more often than any other alternative
  • Canned/bagged stock: Most of the time these are concentrated, there's a lot of variation in quality between brands. They have a long shelf life, and don't require refrigeration
  • Fresh stock: you can sometimes find fresh stocks in the refrigerator section of the supermarket, or at a butcher/specialist food store. These are the best alternative but can be expensive

Personally I rarely make stock, and when I do I use it right away. When I need to strengthen the flavor of a broth, or I need stock I use knorr stockpots (one of the concentrated gel products), or if I only need a little flavor, I spoon of powder. There are a few cubes rattling around my cupboards for emergencies too.

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    There's also jars of paste in the US that can be fairly good.
    – Cascabel
    Jan 14, 2016 at 17:11
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    Regarding stock cubes / powders: For chicken, this is the ultimate truth about most modern cubes/powders (in Dutch only, sorry). The most popular varieties don't even have chicken in them, or in quantities of less than 1%. The flavor is achieved through other chemical processes, which (and this the best part) people now have come to associate with how chicken stock ought to taste, labeling the real stuff as "bland", "not tasting like chicken", "lacking the distinct smell and taste of roasted chicken". Jan 14, 2016 at 18:08
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    In Serious Eat's DIY pot noodle article, they mentioned "Better than Boullion" ... I've never used that one, personally. I tend to use boullion as a sort of flavored salt when cooking, rather than as a replacement for stock or broth. For broth, I tend to stick with the ones in aseptic packaging (cartons like paralat milk) vs. the canned stuff. I haven't seen bagged.
    – Joe
    Jan 14, 2016 at 21:04
  • @Joe Yup that's one of the pastes I was thinking of. ATK recommended it as well I think. It seems good to me too, and I tend to prefer it over cartons since it takes less space, you can make small amounts, and you can make it more concentrated (including mixing it into something already containing water).
    – Cascabel
    Jan 15, 2016 at 1:24
  • errrr, just because there is variation in pre-made industrial stock quality, does not mean that there is no answer if they ALL differ from home made real stock. The may vary, but they are ALL hugely inferior to the real thing. Some are just more inferior than others.
    – Marc Luxen
    Jan 21, 2016 at 17:12
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Quality varies. I have yet to find a store bought equivalent to homemade, but there are adequate products. It would be worth it to purchase a few samples and find one you like. I would look for something with little to no salt, as it is better to control for that yourself, in your final product. Having said that, making stock yourself, particularly using a pressure cooker is easy, and can take as little as 30 minutes. Strain and freeze. Without a pressure cooker, the process takes longer, but it is mostly unattended time.

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The problem is: Bought stocks tend to have a long ingredients list, and create a "shadow recipe" effect easily - important or problematic ingredients get carried into the dish via some bought product that they were arbitrarily mixed into, confusing recipe writers, learners, recipe followers alike.

For example, a lot of vegetable stocks carry turmeric and arbitrary, sometimes counterintuitive herbs and spices, which you would either want or not want in a dish.

Talking of dried vegetable stocks, they create a paradox: The type that is fortified with some umami source (yeast extract, HVP, MSG...) matches that description of a mixture of things that do not need mixing unless it is meant as a condiment or ready to eat product, the type without (unless it uses eg plenty of mushrooms as a umami source that you would include in a homemade vegetable stock) in the end is more of an aromatic/spice salt than a functional stock.

One thing that is occasionally worth doing, if using such stocks, is boiling a big kettle of water and making and tasting a cup of each brand you have, and taking notes about the differences.

(Recently developing a strong opinion on things recently that are mixed from what needs not mixing, especially if not by a well recognized recipe, and are meant as an ingredient...)

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  • Exactly. And may I add: put a home-made stock in the mix too, and draw your own conclusion. I am hundred percent sure no one will want to expose their food to industrial chemical "stocks" ever again..
    – Marc Luxen
    Jan 15, 2016 at 10:11
  • Homemade stocks can become a storage issue though, unless you brutally reduce them they take quite some fridge/freezer space... I bet one could usefully fill a lowboy fridge with micro-stocks, and reduce produce waste in the same course of action, but space.... Jan 15, 2016 at 10:20
  • Maybe. Lets have a calculation. Lets take it big. You make 1000 litre stock, reduce to 20 percent, so now 200 litre lefts. That fits in a space of 0.5x0.5x0.80m. Make it 25 percent more if you want portions. That is not a lot for the backbone of a kitchen, is it? In any half decent restaurant in france chef would cut your hands of if you even tried to use something else... Anyway, with these numbers you probably would want to use a dedicated eternal stockpot..
    – Marc Luxen
    Jan 15, 2016 at 10:34
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    Many stocks hold up surprisingly well to brutal reduction. Especially when you keep the ingredient list as simple as possible eg: Turkey bones, water. Add the other stuff after you pull your small container of concentrate out of the freezer. Jan 16, 2016 at 0:38
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Nothing compares to well made home cooked stock. Almost all commercial stock flavors, cubes, boxed stock, better than pastes, College, Kitchen, Rachael, etc., come from one manufacturing plant. The basic difference is the salt content.

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