With only vegetables, salt and water (ok and some herbs and spices if we’re feeling jaunty), the vegetable stock that flavours all the dishes of our life can just taste like vegetables and salt and water. However, with a bit of tinkering, we can have a rich, deeply-flavoured veggie stock that can hold up to the likes of tortellini en brodo (above) and French onion soup, etc.
First port of call: good quality aromatic vegetables (have you come to the right place, or what?!).
Second: time and care. A good long, slow simmer will help to create a complex, flavourful stock.
Third: Some flavour-bomb secret weapons. Read on!
Servings |
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Ingredients
- organic celery
- organic carrots
- organic onions
- organic garlic
- organic mushrooms
- organic broccoli
- organic tomatoes
- any vegetable peelings, tops and scraps
- organic parsley stalks
- organic dried bay leaves
- organic sea salt and pepper
- dried porcini mushrooms flavour bomb number one!
- dried shiitake mushrooms flavour bomb number two!
- Nutritional yeast flavour bomb number three!
Ingredients
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Instructions
- Gather your vegetable flavouring ingredients and a very large pot.
- Heat some olive oil in the pot and roughly chop your ingredients.
- Saute your smaller aromatic vegetable ingredients (like onion, carrot, celery, etc) in olive oil over a medium heat for 10-20 minutes.
- Add the rest of the vegetables.
- Add your flavour bombs! You really don't need a lot of these, a little goes a long way. Just a pinch!
- Add your water, salt, spices, and herbs and bring to a boil.
- Simmer several hours until the stock is reduced and flavour is as rich as you would like. You can also keep adding water, as necessary, or even strain the stock and return it to the pot, boiling it to reduce further and strengthen the flavour.