Kitchen Bouquet is a flavouring sauce and browning agent. It is primarily used to provide colour to foods such as sauces, soups, and stews, rather than as a finishing sauce or condiment. The inclusion of a concentrated vegetable base gives it a pleasantly flavorful flavour. However, because it is used in such little amounts, it will not add any detectable taste to a dish.
The major ingredient in Kitchen Bouquet is caramel colour, which is a food additive made by heating any of several distinct forms of sugar, typically glucose or sucrose, causing it to caramelise. To generate caramel colour, however, the sugar is heated well above the temperatures used in candy manufacture, resulting in a dark brown product with a bitter, burnt flavour. However, because only a small amount of caramel colour is required to generate a brown colour in dishes, the burnt flavour is hardly noticeable.
Kitchen Bouquet Applications
Some cooks claim that Kitchen Bouquet may thicken sauces, but this is not true. Thickening sauces is accomplished by the addition of starch, and because Kitchen Bouquet contains no starches, it cannot provide any thickening effect. Food stylists frequently use Kitchen Bouquet to simulate the brown colour of cooked meals for food photography. A few drops of Kitchen Bouquet in a cup of water, for example, can make it look like coffee, and it can be brushed or sprayed onto a cooked chicken breast to give it a grilled appearance.
How to Use Kitchen Bouquet?
Using Kitchen Bouquet in your cooking is as simple as adding a drop or two to your sauce, soup, or stew. Some cooks like to brush it on roast meats to make them look more roasted, or add it to slow-cooker or braised foods to give them a darker colour. Because it has a strong darkening impact, it's better to start with a drop or two before adding more to avoid making your cuisine darker than you wanted.
Kitchen Bouquet Flavour
Kitchen Bouquet isn't known for its flavour, but it does have a slightly savoury flavour that comes from small amounts of concentrated vegetable basis, which is similar to the type of ingredient used to make concentrated soup or stock bases. However, because just a small amount of Kitchen Bouquet is required to generate a dark brown hue, you're unlikely to taste it in the dish. Even though the first component is caramel colour, the product is not sweet since all of the sweetness is boiled out of the sugars to obtain maximum dark colour.
Kitchen Bouquet Storage
Kitchen Bouquet is a shelf-stable item that does not need to be refrigerated. It can be stored in your pantry with other dried herbs, spices, and seasonings for up to three to four years.