More on the subject of stocks…

I suspect that almost no one makes stocks at home any more, which is a real shame, since it can bring a lot of flavor to a meal. Even better, it brings that flavor with few calories and virtually no fat. In virtually any savory dish, you can substitute stock for water, and whatever you are making will taste better. You can also replace the dairy in your mashed potatoes with a nice chicken or vegetable stock, and the results will not disappoint.

The complaint I hear about stock making is that it takes too long. Well, if you don’t happen to have eight to ten hours to slowly simmer whole beef bones that you painstakingly browned in the oven, painting with tomato puree (that you made earlier from your own garden-grown heirloom tomatoes), then you clearly don’t have your priorities straight.

Yeah, I don’t have the time or money to do that, either, so my solution is to make a vegetable stock. It only takes about an hour, contains no animal products whatsoever (impress that cute vegan in your life), and brings a lot of flavor to the party. Granted, you cannot extract gelatin from a carrot, so the veggie stock lacks a certain…unctuousness…but that can always be fixed in a number of ways.

The key to a good veggie stock? Use seasonal vegetables. Asparagus in season? Toss some in. Mushrooms? Great, use’em. The only things to avoid, generally, are the green leafy vegetables (sulfide creation, aka the stinky sock smell) and tomatoes (that would be a tomato sauce).

Here’s my basic recipe for a veggie stock, as you can see, it is pretty simple, there are only a few critical parts that I don’t deviate from:

2 parts onion (or leek or shallot or any combination)
1 part carrots
1 part celery
1-2 cloves garlic (I like garlic, use your own taste)
~1/2 part of whatever vegetables I feel are appropriate (parsnip, rutabaga, asparagus, sweet potato, etc).
1 gallon of water
sachet (bay leaf, sprig of thyme, 10 or so parsley stems, maybe a clove; usually they are wrapped in cheesecloth and submerged, but in an effort to save money, I found a reusable one – they make a variety of them).

I chop the veggies in to small, uniform pieces, and sweat them in a little olive oil under low heat until the onions are translucent. Add the water, bring the whole thing to a boil then dial back the heat. I let it simmer for about 40 minutes, then I strain it. The stock can hold for months if frozen, and I’m you could probably hold it for three or four days in the refrigerator (animal-based stocks seem to be able to keep longer, as the high gelatin found in those stocks keep microbes from penetrating. The veggie stock doesn’t have that gelatin, so may not keep as long – sources available on request).