Vegetable stock: my secret lover (2011)
blog.andymatuschak.org
blog.andymatuschak.org
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_stew ,
sometimes as pot-au-feu:
When I cook white beans, I freeze the broth in ice cube trays and use it in place of water when cooking. When I cook darker beans, I use the broth to make soup or stews.
I've made a simple brothy soup from the light broth garnished with herbs (fried sage leaves always impresses) and a splash of olive oil. It's a great meal starter.
Are you sure it's not "pot liquor"?
Onions: Provide a sweet and savory base flavor (can vary based on onion type eg yellow, white, red)
Carrots: Add sweetness and earthiness.
Celery: Adds a savory note and depth.
Leek: Adds a mild, sweet onion flavor.
Garlic: Adds a pungent, savory flavor.
Bay leaf: Adds a subtle herbal note (lots of people think bay leaves add very little to most things but fresh bay leaves really help)
Parsley stems: Adds freshness and a herbaceous flavor.
But you can definitely add either to a stock. The fresh pepper will add (if red) a sweetness and savory note. The green peppers will add more vegetal flavors, less sweetness. But I think leftover pepper is best eaten raw as a snack, salad dressing optional.
In Hungary, it's relatively uncommon to need to distinguish between the ground form and the vegetable form, as it seems to be some kind of folk knowledge imparted by generation DNA or something, but if you ever do need to, then the expression fűszerpaprika exists (meaning 'spice pepper').
We use the same word for bell peppers and black pepper, so it's not that big of a jump, just takes some getting used to.
I love cooking and make all sorts of things myself from scratch, mind. So when I want to make a soup, I start with a light roux (extra virgin olive oil and strong wholemeal flour, equal measures), then boil some water, melt in a couple of stock cubes and add to the roux. Also makes a great base for sauces. For extra flavour I sautée some onions in the olive oil before adding the flour.
The truth is that most commercial stock cubes are basically salt, with a bit of flavouring, which is a total rip-off and pointless. My local supermarket sells a couple brands that have 0-salt stock cubes and one of them even has no "flavour enhancers" so I go for those. The only downside is that the stock always tastes the same.
In the last couple of years I've relaxed a lot about making it all myself from scratch and I'll happily use tinned mushroom, beans or chickpeas (for houmous). Considering the amount of time you have to boil pulses before they're the right consistency that probably saves me a buttload of money, on top of the time. I draw the line at carrots. Carrots are best, fresh.
https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/kallo-organic-vegetab...
They also have chicken and beef cubes. I have to correct my earlier comment though, now that I look at the ingredients again: it's not 0 salt. The page above lists 0.1g per 100ml of stock, so once hydrated. It's a bit annoying they don't tell you exactly how much salt is in the cube itself, only in the stock. Apologies. I remembered it as being 0 salt.
The other brand that I ended up not using because it looked to me like it had too many additives is Knorr, who also have veg, chicken and beef stocks and list 0g salt per 100ml of stock:
If I’m making something that will be thickened there is no need to run the result through a fine meshed sieve. And most of the time when I cook that is the case. Which means no unnecessary waste.
If you want a broth then I suppose I could let it sit until the solids have settled and scoop off the liquid. What I usually do is go easy on the Bamix so the more of the solids are taken out by the sieve.
What would be more interesting would be to do both: juice first, the sautee and then cook the pulp and finally combine the two.
How do you like the Bamix? I was considering replacing my aging Kitchen Aid immersion blender (which I love, but it’s starting to fall apart) with either another Kitchen Aid, or a Braun, or a Bamix. The Bamix seems a very opinionated design, but interesting. Reviews I’ve seen are split between love/hate, though.
I saw a test where they put the bamix up against a few other immersion blenders and it did well. It wasn't the fastest, but among the fast ones. The thing that sets it apart is the clean and simple design. I've had mine for a bit over a decade without any problems.
I'm sure there are other products on the market that you should consider. I must admit that I have not kept abreast of immersion blender news. But I would have no problem recommending it. It is one of the most useful tools in my kitchen.
You're right that it isn't as fast as some other blenders, but I think it makes up for it with the simple and durable design. I can live with having to run it for a bit longer.
- Chop the veggies into a pot and fill with some water
- Pour everything into a stand mixer and blend it (veggie smoothie)
- Cook the soup smoothie, add water if needed and strain in 2-steps (coarse & fine) afterwards
- Let the pulp cool and throw it into a juicer for maximum extraction
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- You can sauté with oil in the beginning for additional flavours
- Simmer and reduce for more concentrated flavours in the end
Be aware, after tasting these intense veggie flavours, you won't be able to go back to normal veggie stock.
In my own situation, I just wouldn't have enough vegetable trimmings to make stock -- I use the whole vegetable when I cook! For example, I never cut carrot tips off, and I only cut off the black part of the top, which is tiny and wouldn't really go in stock anyhow. Same kind of situation for celery, onions, peppers...
I have the perfect solution for this. Keep a container in the freezer. Whenever you have an extra unusable vegetable bit from chopping, chuck it in the container. Once the container is full, simmer a big pot with all the bits for 30-45 minutes then strain all the solids.
Good veggie bits to use: onion skins and butts, garlic bits, broccoli stems, carrot greens or butts, celery leaves or those hard bottoms, kale stems, chard stems (although they can really color the stock), asparagus stems, fennel bits, the green leek leaves,
Bad veggie bits, don't use (adds weird/too much flavor): any nightshade bits (bell peppers, tomatoes, eggplant etc), green bean or peadpod tops, squashes, cucumber, zucchini.
Haven't tried other veggies.
ETA: shouldn’t use normally edible parts to make stock. Only like the tips and tails of carrots, celery root balls, onion peels… I keep a gallon ziplock in the freezer that accumulates these as I cook other things. When it’s full I usually make chicken stock.
If you try it, you will likely be surprised by how mich usually gets thrown away.
Soggy fibre is a good thing in these cases because it thickens the sauce and doesn't draw attention away from the meat and the larger veg chunks.
If I'm making chicken stock the resulting vegetables don't have to be thrown away, but they aren't super appetizing- a mushy texture and not much flavor. Typically it's less than $5 of vegetables, like celery, carrots, onion and garlic. Not clear it's even worth saving given you extracted all the goodness into the stock.
“the subsequent dinner’s conversation remained imperturbably anchored to how unbelievably tasty it was”
Can’t say I’m a fan of this writing. Nigel Slater is similarly precious and self-regarding.
DIY stock can be great but it’s a long process and the result is usually cloudy, in my experience.
A surprisingly simple, yet delicious and versatile stock is Japanese dashi. No long boiling process is needed (though I admit to just use powdered dashi)
From wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashi
> The most common form of dashi is a simple broth made by heating water containing kombu (edible kelp) and kezurikatsuo (shavings of katsuobushi – preserved, fermented skipjack tuna or bonito) to near-boiling, then straining the resultant liquid
Though in my experience the resultant liquid is reduced.
It takes hours to make good chicken stock and I want to make and store a whole lot of stock so that it is available to me for at least a week or longer. However, I don't have a lot of space in my fridge.
Boiling your stock down to a fraction of the original volume is not a solution .. the carrots and celery and especially the aromatics do not do well when frozen for over a week. edit: typo
In the freezer it lasts, essentially, forever.
Make the stock, strain it, put in a freezer bag and freeze flat. Keeps a long time and takes little space.
Then when you want to make soup, thaw the stock, add veg and cook until the right texture.
A. Escoffier, 'Le Guide Culinaire: The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery', Translated by H. L. Cracknell and R. J. Kaufmann, ISBN 0-8317-5478-8, Mayflower, New York, 1982.
For beef stock, Escoffier wants bones of old cattle -- so, could use retired bulls and/or dairy cattle. Apparently retired cattle are a source of beef for the fast food hamburger restaurants.
Instead of vegetable stock I just make vegetable soup. I use a 16 quart stock pot and add onions and red potatoes (both browned in olive oil), canned peas, carrots, corn, beans, 10 pounds of frozen mixed vegetables, garlic, thyme, basil, oregano, canned crushed tomatoes, salt, pepper.
Sooo, that mixture makes its own vegetable stock!
I bring the pot to a simmer to sterilize.
I make a flavor mixture: 1 cup of each of soy sauce, BBQ sauce, hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce.
Just before serving, I add some water (don't have much in the 16 quart pot) and some of flavor mixture. It tastes good!
He worked most of his career in London hotels and restaurants. He complained that you can't get proper old cattle in Britain; he said we slaughtered them too young, no older than two years. For stock, he wanted animals aged 4 years, or even older.
Mind you, I've not made pho successfully, but I've read a few recipes for it and tried making it a couple times.
Small amount, it's strong.
How do you determine what part of the vegetable is good enough for stock, but not good enough to eat?
Off my the top of my head:
- People say carrot peelings go in the stock, but I am assuming no one is throwing their potato peeling in the stock. (I use neither - that's why I'm peeling it)
- Do you use the carrot top? The part you cut off so as not to eat the green. What about the green?
- What about either end of an onion? The paper like skin? If so, do you wash it?
A good stock will have some carrots (peels or chunks), celery (leaves are great for this), onion (the ends are perfect), tomatoes (again, the cut off ends are perfect), and probably whatever parsley or any other veggies that are hanging around and will spoil before I eat them. I keep the flavor profile pretty neutral so maybe a bit of pepper and salt but nothing else.
I don't throw in anything that is obviously bad or filthy, but a quick rinse at best is really all you need. The stock will be boiled at least once, more than likely twice (when you cook with it) so I'm more concerned with flavor than bacteria.
Used to do that a lot, and now that a local store has a lot of good looking scallops may again!
Yup!
goes on to describe a 70+ minute process
There's your answer. Not everyone enjoys cooking, and even fewer enjoy preparatory drudge-work, even when the results are excellent.
My consommé was lovely; but no better than Baxter's tinned consommé (and no worse). I haven't tried again since.
The stock should be flavorful enough as is. You shouldn't need to also squeeze the vegetables to get more flavor (just cook longer if you want that).
I use a mesh sieve and nothing else.
One way to level up your pan sauces at home is to dissolve a packet of clear unflavored gelatin per cup of stock before using it -- give it about 10 minutes to bloom first and then stir it. It'll make it much thicker and richer as it reduces -- and this works for basically any recipe that needs stock.
I am not sure I would use gelatin in a vegetable stock. Things I've used: arrowroot powder, cornstarch, flour, potato starch, agar. A classic veggie gravy would be veggie stock + flour/butter + maybe some tomato paste.
Typically you’d do this while making the dish, not add it to the stock ahead of time .
Otherwise I use gelatin in pan sauces if I'm not using flour or other thickeners. Also easier to hit the right consistency as I can just add more unlike with flour that should be cooked in fat first.
1. Ensures chunks of meat, veg, ... can absorb a little salt. Potatoes especially benefit from this.
2. Serves as a minor tenderizing agent for meat chunks (the effect is very small, you should pre-salt or pre-brine if you want it to be large).
3. Mildly dehydrates the other soup ingredients via osmosis, and prevents them from plumping up via osmosis the other direction when they have some internal salts. This concentrates flavors in the chunky bits and generally gives a bit nicer texture.
4. Gives you a smaller "gap" of remaining salt to add at the end. That's important because smaller quantities are easier for us to judge accurately, so you can get the salt level right in fewer iterations, and because a lot of people aren't methodical when taste-testing salt and accidentally saturate their taste buds if they have to try a few times (leading to an overly salty soup -- even to their own taste buds a few minutes later).
It has a few other minor effects. As always in cooking, those are just "changes" and not necessarily "positive changes" (and again, for most dishes the effects are small), but I usually like soups I pre-salt a bit better than ones I don't.
As to the actual technique you asked about, I think the biggest benefit would be an extension of point (4) above. Salting in small amounts with large gaps in time allows your taste buds time to recover and makes it easier to dial the salt in perfectly. If you frequently make stock you'll get a feel for what it "should" taste like at each stage, so the decreasing water volume will wind up mattering less than you might think.
Mind you, I don't personally like to salt my stocks. You have very different salt requirements for different end uses. If it's salty enough for a soup (which has tons of added water), it can't make a passable pan sauce (which has almost no extra volume comparatively). Adding the salt explicitly in each recipe is easier for me to work with personally. It also makes it easier to accommodate the occasional guest on a low sodium diet.
Tangentially, I often prefer to cook my stocks down into something like a demi-glace. They take less space in the fridge, they keep better, they're easier to use in pan sauces (where you don't want much extra water and need to be careful which stage you add the stock if you have to cook water out), they're no harder to use for soups (just add more water as desired), and I find them a bit easier to portion that way (if a recipe has specific texture expectations, you need to account for water percentage somehow, and having it all gone is an easy mechanism; even for other recipes, breaking off a chunk about the right size is fast, mess-free, and dishes-free, which is slightly less the case with liquid stocks). The biggest downside is just removing the hot water vapor from my home (old apartment, poor air-flow). I've been in kitchens where that's a non-issue, but at present demi-glace is a wintertime activity when I don't mind having a few doors open to pull fresh, cold air in.
Another tangential tip, roast the bones (250F for 6h, or 400F for 2) and meat scraps before turning them into stock. Most end uses benefit from the extra richness.