Yeast extract

Extrait de levure

What it is

Liebig showed in the nineteenth century that yeast cells could be broken open and concentrated into something meat-like, and in 1902 a factory opened at Burton upon Trent to work through the spent yeast the town's breweries were throwing away. The savour is free glutamate released as the cell digests itself - the same molecule behind parmesan and soy sauce.

In the kitchen

Half a teaspoon in two litres of stock is the whole dose; beyond that it turns bitter and tastes unmistakably of itself. Dissolve it in a ladle of hot liquid first - dropped into a cold sauce it stays in lumps that never quite go.

Goes with

Button mushroom Onion Butter Lentils Tomato Beef Carrot Soy sauce

Same species

Nutritional yeast Baker’s yeast

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