Eh, I got this once, too. It was specially face-palming because OP of that thread requested advice about a beef and vegs dish, and I suggested him to sub MSG with soy sauce. Typical witch hunting mentality, that’s what happens when you don’t kick out assumptive and context-ignoring people.
That’s rather curious to read, when you’re from a chunk of Latin America where MSG was never seen as a big deal - it’s that stuff that you’d sprinkle over rice croquettes, or use in some Asian dishes, and… that it? The only times where I’ve found people claiming headaches were on the internet. (Usually known by the name of a Japanese brand.)
I tend to avoid it though - at least pure MSG is boring. Soy sauce, beef broth, tomato paste, Parmesan, those are usually better - because they’ll give you that savouriness plus other flavours. And it’s outright pointless to sprinkle it over meats, it’s like dropping a bucket of water in the ocean.
And it’s outright pointless to sprinkle it over meats, it’s like dropping a bucket of water in the ocean.
Hard disagree.
I’ve experimented a lot with my meats (I like to bbq steaks and make jerky) and seasonings, and I can definitely notice a huge improvement when I use Accent (pure MSG) over when I don’t, even when it’s the only thing not shared between two pieces of meat cooked together.
Salt + pepper is good.
Salt + pepper + MSG is even better.
Salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder and MSG is the GOAT.
I like to cook pasta in MSG-water sometimes. I also tend to use wholemeal pasta, which I think is important (the wholemeal aspect) ^.^. MSG works best for me when I use it with things that already have a decent depth of flavour and/or variety of ingredients ;3. It doesnt work so well if your food doesnt have enough flavour.
Other cool ingredients:
liquid smoke (works really well in a lot of things including vegetarian chilis, but especially i’ve found its good in lentil soups when you also have mint e.g lentil and pea soup, lentil, potato, onion soup, etc. ^.^) - look for the industrial stuff, its like £5 per bottle but you only need 1 or 2 drops for litres of sauce and it will last you months, kinda like MSG. Add it near the end so you don’t evaporate away lots of the flavour, too.
yeast extract - this shit is delicious in tomato sauces and stews and chili, even if in the uk we typically have it on toast ;p, adds a meaty, mushroomy flavour
cinnamon - works amazing in tomato sauces, it sounds weird as fuck but tomato sauce without it tastes like its missing something to me now, its so fundamental to any tomato sauce i make ;3
bonus: yeast extract + mustard makes a really really cheesy flavour in various sauces, and its completely dairy free. I
I’ve tried this once, and I can’t say that I liked the result. I guess that my spice profiles simply doesn’t combo well with cinnamon, since when I use baharat instead (that contains cinnamon) it gets great.
Some of it is probably personal preference too. I really like cinnamon, which might influence why i like it particularly much in tomato sauce ^.^
Typically for tomato sauce I like it quite umami, so I add things like peppers (the fruit/veg and black pepper), soya sauce, salt, MSG, etc., as well as mixed “italian” (i doubt it actually is, but it’s sold as that, and I have limited spice cupboard space) herb and spice mixes (usually with stuff like parsley, basil, etc. in it), as well as sage, thyme, garlic powder, with amounts depending on what I want ^.^
Probably the only time I wouldn’t add cinnamon is if I was using the tonato sauce as a component of a curry, but a lot of that is because it would get diluted out and I don’t think cinnamon goes so well with some curry flavours.
Ehh, liquid smoke is def a lot better for you that actually smoking things, because there is a filtration step that removes a lot of the worse Volatile Organic Compounds that make smoke carcinogenic.
You’re probably right it’s not fantastic though ;p
And damn, idk what i’d do if onions made me ill… I use them in so much. Though i’ve found some ways of making them do make me feel ill , just i rarely make them that way so.
If you’d rather avoid liquid smoke try using smoked paprika instead. Store bought does the job but if you can find the good stuff at a local farmer’s market, it’s worth it.
Once he started doing collabs with Josh Weissman, I think that took it from a bit into something serious. After that, I started seeing a bunch of YouTube cooking channels start using it.
I prefer using things with high glutamate content instead of straight MSG, but I do keep a jar on hand for when food is lacking that something.
Add comment