Thursday, May 27, 2010

Homemade Vegetable Broth/Stock

Making a good vegetable stock is not only easy, it is economical too. It is great for making flavorful soups such as Stone Soup and casseroles like Risotto. All one has to do is to collect all the clean vegetable scraps for a couple of days from whatever veggies are used - peels from potatoes and carrots, trimmings from celery, leeks, and zucchini, tomato pieces leftover from making sandwiches or salad, mushroom, spinach, parsley and other herb stems, corn cobs, etc.

Strong veggies such as broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower etc are not used for making broth as their flavors tend to be overpowering or unsavory although Linola often uses cauliflower stalks and core. Once you have about a quart or more of scraps, proceed with making the stock. If you don't have any scraps, not to worry - go ahead and chop up a couple of carrots, celery ribs, etc and add to the rest of the ingredients.

About 2 quarts

Ingredients:

Assorted vegetable scraps
1 each - onion, garlic, carrot
1 small potato (optional)
1 tsp whole Black Peppercorns
1 Bay Leaf
a few herb sprigs - parsley, thyme, sage
1 tsp Sea Salt
1 pinch Turmeric

Method:

Gather all the clean scraps in a large stock pot; the veggies should be chopped small so that all the nutrients can be drawn out into the broth.

Add the crushed garlic, chopped carrot and onion, herb sprigs and the bay leaf.

Add the Sea Salt, peppercorns, and the turmeric. Add 2 quarts of water to cover the veggies.

Bring to a boil and reduce heat so that the stock is just simmering. Cover and allow to simmer for 1 hour.

When cool enough to handle, strain through a fine strainer and discard the pulp. Set aside the stock to cool if not using right away. If it is not going to be used within a couple of days, it should be frozen for later use.

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