At the end of last century and the beginning of this century, individual businesses mainly producing chicken essence speculated that "monosodium glutamate is harmful to health", which led to misleading consumption and quickly occupied the monosodium glutamate market in China. In the weekly quality report of CCTV- news channel on June 5438-1October 7, 2007, Wu, an authoritative official nutrition expert, said: The main component of monosodium glutamate and chicken essence is sodium glutamate, and the difference between them is less than10%; And clarify that "eating monosodium glutamate is harmless to health" and "chicken essence is only a condiment, which mainly plays a seasoning role and has low nutritional value". For a time, rumors such as "Eating monosodium glutamate will lead to hair loss", "Children will not grow tall after eating monosodium glutamate", "Eating monosodium glutamate will lead to hemiplegia" and "Eating monosodium glutamate will lead to dementia" spread all over the country and were exposed.
The production process of chicken essence is as follows: grain (wheat, corn and soybean)-monosodium glutamate semi-finished product (sodium glutamate)-mixed with a small amount of chicken powder and other auxiliary materials-granulation-drying-packaging-inspection-finished product-warehousing. In order to obtain chicken essence products with good color and flavor, the choice of accessories is very important. The quality of semi-finished monosodium glutamate (sodium glutamate) and oil plays a decisive role in the finished chicken essence.
Chicken essence is a compound flavoring agent. It contains not only chicken powder and egg powder, but also protein and flavor nucleic acid, as well as a certain proportion of refined salt and chicken oil. Therefore, in addition to delicious taste, the nutritional value is basically the same as monosodium glutamate. A new generation of condiments, such as chicken essence, appeared in the 1960 s, when it was stranded because of blocked marketing. In the 1990s, through commercial operation and media hype, "monosodium glutamate is harmful to health" and "chicken essence has high nutritional value", which partially replaced chicken essence. Therefore, China's largest monosodium glutamate production base, lotus gourmet powder (accounting for more than 90% of the national monosodium glutamate exports) and other monosodium glutamate enterprises suffered huge losses.
Actually, chicken essence and sparerib essence belong to the same category. At the end of last century, many people have begun to regard the use of chicken essence as a very fashionable thing, and its popularity in China has rapidly increased, and it has been favored in household consumption. Professional chefs in hotels are generally used to using more monosodium glutamate, and chicken essence is mainly used for chicken dishes.
At present, the contents of chicken essence and chicken powder sold in the market are not high, and some of them do not contain chicken powder at all, but are composed of monosodium glutamate, umami flavor, salt and starch.
What is chicken powder? Chicken powder in chicken essence is the juice extracted from chicken by special techniques such as yeast. This juice becomes chicken powder after processing. Its biggest feature is that it can be dissolved in water, but its extraction is complicated and its technical requirements are very high. The important function of chicken powder is to increase the flavor, so it is more than twice as expensive as monosodium glutamate with the same weight. Under the temptation of profits, some enterprises producing chicken essence use little or no chicken powder or even use chemically synthesized chicken essence in order to save costs or reduce prices, but they still sell it in the name of chicken essence.
Components of monosodium glutamate and chicken essence
According to reports, monosodium glutamate is a sodium salt of glutamic acid and a delicious substance. Its scientific name is sodium glutamate, also known as monosodium glutamate. In addition, it contains a small amount of salt, water, fat, sugar, iron, phosphorus and other substances. Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is a delicious seasoning cooking material made from wheat, soybean and other raw materials containing more protein or starch by hydrolysis or fermentation. It can also be made from beet and honey by chemical synthesis. Monosodium glutamate is easily soluble in water, with strong hygroscopicity and delicious taste. It is still delicious when dissolved in 3000 times of water, and its optimum dissolution temperature is 70℃ ~ 90℃. Monosodium glutamate is stable under general cooking and processing conditions, but it is easy to turn into sodium pyroglutamate at high temperature for a long time, which is tasteless and slightly toxic. It precipitates or is insoluble in alkaline or strongly acidic solution, and its umami taste is not obvious or even disappears. It can not only increase people's appetite, but also provide some nutrition as a homemade condiment.
On the other hand, chicken essence is a compound condiment. Its basic ingredients are processed by adding fresh-keeping additives, salt, sugar, chicken powder, spices, chicken essence and other ingredients on the basis of 90% monosodium glutamate, and it also contains a variety of amino acids. A compound seasoning product is mainly prepared from sodium glutamate, disodium nucleotide, salt, chicken, chicken bone powder or concentrated extract as basic raw materials, essence (or without essence) and excipient, mixing, granulating and drying. Chicken essence can be divided into powder, granule and block according to its shape, but granule is the main one.
Monosodium glutamate chicken essence
Each has its own characteristics.
Monosodium glutamate can supplement human amino acids, which is beneficial to improve and maintain brain function. Because it tastes delicious, it can stimulate people's appetite. MSG helps to improve the digestibility of food. In addition, monosodium glutamate, the main component of monosodium glutamate, also has the function of treating chronic hepatitis, hepatic coma, neurasthenia, epilepsy, gastric acid deficiency and other diseases.
Chicken essence has the following characteristics: (1) it is made of chicken and eggs, which has both the delicate flavor and the fragrance of chicken; Its chemical composition is compound nucleotide and sodium glutamate, which has excellent freshness and realizes the combination of freshness and seasoning. Compared with monosodium glutamate, its freshness is 1.5 ~ 2 times that of monosodium glutamate, and it is a healthy food with high nutritional content. It is reported that the sales volume of chicken essence in Shanghai and its surrounding coastal areas is equivalent to that of monosodium glutamate. Chicken essence can stand out from many condiments in a short time, which is inseparable from its freshness, freshness and chicken flavor. In addition, it also has the advantages of high temperature resistance, no odor and no drying after eating. These are unmatched by other condiments.
Monosodium glutamate chicken essence should be used reasonably
Monosodium glutamate is a kind of seasoning to enhance flavor, which can be used for cooking, stuffing, cold dishes and soup. However, if you don't follow the rules of use, you will not only fail to achieve the ideal seasoning effect, but even have side effects. Therefore, when using monosodium glutamate in cooking, we should pay attention to: 1. Don't add it to the boiling pot, but add it when the dish is about to go out. Because when the temperature is higher than 120℃, sodium glutamate will become the focus, which is harmful to human body and difficult to excrete. 2. It is not advisable to add monosodium glutamate to acidic foods, such as sweet and sour fish and sweet and sour tenderloin. Monosodium glutamate is alkaline, and when added to acidic food, it will cause chemical reaction and make dishes taste bad. 3. Alkaline raw materials should not use monosodium glutamate. When monosodium glutamate meets alkali, it will synthesize disodium glutamate, which will produce ammonia odor, reduce umami taste and even lose umami taste. 4. Pay attention to the salinity. If it is too salty, monosodium glutamate may not taste good. When the ratio of salt to monosodium glutamate is in the range of 3: 1 or 4: 1, a round and soft taste can be obtained. It should be dissolved before being added as a cold salad. Because the dissolution temperature of monosodium glutamate is 85℃, it is difficult to decompose monosodium glutamate below this temperature. 5. There is no need to put monosodium glutamate in the dishes made of broth, chicken, eggs and aquatic products.
From a health point of view, chicken essence is harmless to human body. In the cooking process, the use conditions of chicken essence are much looser than those of monosodium glutamate. Chicken essence can be used in any application of monosodium glutamate. When it is added to dishes, soups and pasta, it has a good fresh-keeping effect, especially when it is added to the hot pot in the soup, its aroma and taste are compatible with each other, which makes people's appetite open.
But when cooking, if you add too much chicken essence, it will destroy the original flavor of the dish and affect the taste. In the use of chicken essence, we should also pay attention to the following points: 1 The salt content of chicken essence is about 10%, so the food should be properly salted before adding chicken essence. 2. Chicken essence contains nucleotides, and its metabolite is uric acid, so gout patients should reduce their intake appropriately; 3. The solubility of chicken essence is worse than that of monosodium glutamate. If it is used in soup, it should be dissolved before use. Only in this way can it be better perceived by taste cells; 4. Chicken essence contains salt and has strong hygroscopicity, so it should be sealed after use, otherwise the nutritious chicken essence will breed a large number of microorganisms and pollute food.
Monosodium glutamate and chicken essence, one is a condiment containing only single sodium glutamate, and the other is a compound condiment with chicken flavor processed on the basis of monosodium glutamate, both of which can be safely eaten.