Vegetable stock
Ingredients
1.5 kg vegetables.
- onion / leeks
- carrots
- parsley root (You can use celery root, but then you need to use less as it is very dominating.)
- potatoes
- celery
- 1 bouquet Garni (1 bunch parsley, 4-5 Bay leaves, 1 bound fresh thyme ell 1 tbsp. dried.)
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 tablespoon whole peppercorns
Directions
Peel and clean the vegetables.
If there are large vegetables among, then cut them into smaller pieces so that all the vegetables are cooked at roughly the same rate.
Brown if you want a dark stock.
Put them in a saucepan and cover with water. Up to 3 liters/quarts, depending on how strong you want the stock.
Then bring it to a boil and let it simmer for an hour or two.
Sieve it through your finest sieve.
If you are busy, grate the vegetables on a grater or cut it into fine julienne with a sharp knife. The smaller the vegetable pieces are, the faster the stock is done. If you do grate the vegetables, the stock is done in only 20-30. Then all the flavor is drawn out of the vegetables.
Notes
A vegetable stock is both very easy and very difficult. It's not a classic safe recipe in the same way as a chicken stock. So there is not a standard recipe. The problem is that the individual vegetables are very important for the taste of the final result.
The rule of thumb is 500 g (1 lbs) of vegetables per liter of water.
If you want to make a dark vegetable stock, you just throw the vegetables under oven grill before you boil them. The more you grill them darker the stock. They should not be scorched though as that will make them bitter. It is also advantageous to cook the brown outer parts of the onion peels along. They add a lot of color.
I use roughly equal parts of the above vegetables. But it can vary a bit depending on what I have on hand. If there is one special vegetables you don't like, then just don't use it.
