How to make Vegetable stock
The most flavorful and tasty vegetable stock you can use as an essential ingredient to make your soups, stews and whatever food recipes you can imagine.
Ingredients:
About 1 kg of frozen fresh vegetable scraps
2 liters of water
1 ½ tbsps coarse sea salt
1 tbsp ground black pepper
103g white onions
27g, 8 garlic cloves
33g of fresh ginger root
1 lemon, for rind and juice
5g habanero pepper (optional for more spice)
Directions:
In a large, clean and oil-free stock pot, empty the frozen vegetable scraps and add in the water.
Next, chop up the onions into quarters, cut the garlic cloves in half to expose their flesh, roughly chop up the ginger root and gently remove the rind of the lemon.
Add the onions, garlic, ginger and lemon rind to the stock pot, cover the pot with a lid and transfer to the stove.
Turn on the stove burner to high heat and bring the contents to a boil - should take about 15 to 20 minutes.
After vigorous boil, lower the heat and allow the contents to continue simmering for 40 minutes until the vegetables are wilted and the aroma of the stock has been amplified.
Turn off the heat and allow the pot and the contents to cool down for about 2 hours.
Meanwhile, sterilize a large metal strainer or a large nut milk bag to strain the stock.
Gently pass the stock through the strainer or the nut milk bag and aim to extract as much liquid as possible.
Store the strained stock in glass mason jars and refrigerate. If you choose to freeze the stock to use at a later date, fill up the jar only three-quarters of the way to allow the liquid to expand during freezing without breaking the glass jar.
Now you can use this vegetable stock to make some carrot soup, use as a substitute for water in your stews or make a simple noodle soup. Enjoy
Notes:
Ensure that your vegetables scraps are at their peak freshness before accumulating them to freeze them overtime.
Aim to use root and cruciferous vegetables like carrots, celery, asparagus, broccoli stems, ginger peels and similar produce ingredients to add a depth of flavour to your vegetable stock.
The color of the vegetable stock is determined by the color of your ingredients.
Make this process as sustainable as possible by saving your vegetable scraps over time, within a few months, and any vegetable stock you don’t use, store in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Feel free to add the residue of the vegetable stock to your compost - it’s good for mother nature.
