Welcome friends, welcome back to the kitchen over the last little while we've made a few
Different kinds of soup stock we did chicken stock and we did pork stock and if you go back far enough on
The channel you're gonna find
Some stocks that we made in a slow cooker and they're all really good. We haven't done vegetable stock. Yep
and
Vegetable stock is one of those things that I struggled with for ages
I could never get the depth of flavor or the body that I wanted to in the in the stock
They always came out being a little bit thin and not as full of flavor as I really wanted them to and that changed
by
2009
Not long after I started this channel
We did some shoots in Iceland and Hong Kong and in both of those cities
I ended up in kitchens run by classically trained French chefs
Or chefs that are trained in the classical French style and they both made vegetable stock
using the same basic method their ingredients changed based on their own personal preference and where they were
Iceland is vastly different than Hong Kong. And so the starting point for a really great vegetable stock is the ratio of
vegetables to
liquid based on weight and so just like
With the chicken stock or the pork stock that we made where you have a certain weight of bones to a certain weight of water
Vegetable stock is no different and so it is essentially two parts vegetable by weight to three parts water by weight
so if you're two kilos of vegetables, you're gonna use three kilos or three liters of water and
once I've got that ratio into my head everything started to work a lot better and then the other stuff that they
That they told me how to do
Is to cut it as thin as possible everything needs to be cut as thin as possible
So for the really hard vegetables, I'm gonna use a mandolin and get them cut super razor thin
For the softer vegetables like these mushrooms. I'm gonna use a knife
I'm gonna cut them really thin and that helps in the roasting process
Now the vegetables that you choose are important to you. They're important to the flavor profile that you want to achieve
but a good base starting point is of course the main vegetables of a mirepoix which are onion carrot and celery
Those are going to give you a good flavor base and when you're dealing with the onions you just top and tail them
Take the skin off the papery skin
But you still want to use the papery skin just dump it into the pan with everything else
So the skin is going to give you
Flavor and color so color and flavor aren't always linked but a deeper darker color
Often gives the impression of a richer flavor now, I'm using a mandolin. Don't fear the mandolin
respect the mandolin and
You should be using the guard when you get down to a point where you feel uncomfortable use the guard if you feel uncomfortable
right from the very beginning always use the guard and
If you feel so uncomfortable with the mandolin that you don't want to use it
You don't have to you could definitely use a knife and cut everything that way
Just try to be as precise and thin as possible with your cutting
Of course a good sharp knife helps
So check out the series. I did with my friend gage from the sharp knife shop in Hamilton
He brought me this really cool
Japanese knife and we did a whole series on choosing knives and sharpening knives and that should be up on the channel now
so in here now, I have classic mirepoix of
onion
carrot celery
With the added bonus of a little bit of red bell pepper that's going to bring a sweetness and for both chefs
This was a common base and this is pretty much a common base in
Every vegetable stock you're going to see anywhere. You're going to see this mix of vegetables
From here on in you start to add things that are going to give body and bass notes and an earthiness and sort of
Round it all out and bring it together
One of the vegetables that they both did use
Were leeks and the deal with the leek
Is it brings body?
It brings a silky mouthfeel as well as the flavor of a leek. So I've already cleaned this one
I've got all the grit out you just want to cut it as finely as you possibly can
And don't be in a race to chop if if you need to chop
Slowly or slice slowly to get really nice thin strands. Take your time
precision is kind of important in this recipe because you really want these to cook evenly and brown and
that Brown brings an extra depth of flavor, so
In keeping with that. I've got a beet. I'm only going to put in one beat and beets will bring
color obviously
It'll start to give it a really rich looking color
But it's also going to bring an earthiness a bass note on an incredible sort of bottom note to the entire thing. So
Mandolin for this one. Definitely because you want nice thin slices
Safety first
Of course if you don't like beets don't use beets
Next thing is some fennel top now. I'm just going to use the top of the fennel
I'm going to use the base of the fennel in the actual soup. The fennel bulb is gonna go in the soup
So the top is just going to bring some of that fennel flavor
into the broth
To make the soup bigger and more well-rounded
If you don't like fennel don't use fennel a
lot of these vegetables are
Up to your own interpretation of what flavors you want to bring into the soup if you know where the soup is going
And you think lemongrass would work in the broth then put lemongrass in the broth
You can start to tailor this to whatever you want to be, you know, like beets don't put in beets
It's gonna be your soup make it the way you want it bring in the flavors that you want to bring into the soup
Celery bulb or sell react celery root would be fantastic
Again, earthy flavors things that I don't like to put in our brassicas
Like broccoli or
Cabbage those sorts of things. I find in a long simmered soup
They start to get a little bit bitter a little too bitter for me
I will put them into the soup as a whole vegetable that I'm gonna eat, but I don't generally put it into the broth
But if you like that flavor
It's your broth put it in
next in our dried mushrooms
And I've got dried porcini mushrooms and the dried porcini mushrooms again an earthy umami flavor
really intensified so
you don't have to cut them up and you just sort of crush them in your hand and
Put them in
Next is dried seaweed
and
both chefs used dry seaweed they both lived and worked in places where seaweed
Was everywhere they both used different kinds of seaweed and a lot of recipes
I see say to use Kumu and kubu is fantastic
It is probably the one that most people are going to find
But any dried seaweed the guy in Iceland was using something akin to dulse
and
You get flavor you get umami you get natural glutamates
You get all kinds of things from this you also get mouthfeel from this
There are substances in the seaweed that will sort of mimic to a point
What you would get from animal fat and animal?
Collagen in a regular sort of animal-based soup stock. So this is a very important part of the whole thing
Also go in our peppercorns and just whole peppercorns. You don't need to crush them. You don't need to grind them. They go in
Next we come to fresh mushrooms and you've heard me say this before don't fear the mushrooms get a
big
Selection so I've got Portobello. I've got oysters mushrooms here
Forget what these ones are
Anyway, I've got a bunch of them again slice them thin
And if it seems like a lot of vegetables it is a lot of vegetables a huge amount of vegetables
But that's where you get a huge amount of flavor. The payoff is really big
So I've got all of the veg in here now. I've got mushrooms leeks onions
carrots celery
beets
Fennel
red pepper, of course
you can add anything else that you want any vegetable that you want any vegetable that you think is going to bring a flavor that
You want to this party? This is where if I was making a
Animal-based stock I would always add the Marmite
whereas
For both of these chefs. They did it a little bit differently. They both added
tomato paste
And so I've got about 3 tablespoons of tomato paste in there
Then they both added something fermented and in each case
they added products that aren't available to me here in Canada, but
white miso paste is going to simulate what they did very well the white miso paste is
fermented and
it adds the same style of flavor the same type of flavor in that you would get from the Marmite or
nutritional yeast
Would be a great thing to put in if you if you can't get white miso
So I'm gonna put in about the same of the white miso
There
To that. I'm gonna add a little bit of oil and
We'll just stir that up to make a nice paste
And I know that do mommy gets overused but that's what's going on here so
into the vegetables with this kind of makeshift sauce and
Then you want to mix it into the vegetables completely now. I've got this big
roasting pan
You do this on a sheet tray a cookie tray
you want
You want it big enough that the vegetables aren't too deep you want the heat to go through the vegetables
You want the vegetables to dry out what we're doing here is on one hand
drying the vegetables to concentrate their flavors and
Also adding some browning to the vegetables at the same time
Which will caramelize the sugars and enhance the flavors now, this is all coated. It's time to stick it in the oven
So I've got the oven preheated at 300 degrees Fahrenheit. This is going to go in for at least two hours
And at about the one hour point, I'm gonna come back. I'm gonna give it a stir. I'm going to toss them around
I'm gonna check it out. Check my timing
But I'm gonna say at least two hours before we reach the point that this is ready for the next step
Okay, it's taken two and a half hours to get to this point
And I think we've reached the point where the vegetables have all reduced down and browned
Now there's two things
First thing this took two and a half hours this time. Sometimes it takes two hours
Sometimes two and a half sometimes three and I know that bothers a lot of people they want exact time
They want to know that they're gonna put it in at a temperature for time and it's going to be ready
Cooking isn't like that
You really have to
Sort of read the vegetables and know what's going on and kind of look at it and make a judgment call
It's gonna take a little longer or it's ready. It's got to come out now. The second thing is
It
This really looks like something that is destined for the compost pile, but I'm telling you it's gonna taste great
So I've got almost everything transferred over
There's a lot of flavor left in the bottom of this pan. If I had a really good pan with even higher sides
Where I could just fill it with water and put it back in the oven. That's what I would do 100% of the time
I wouldn't be moving it over to another pan
to put on the stove top
Although we could put it in this pan and stick it back in the oven
since the oven is hot and it's only gonna take about another hour and
Maybe that's what I'm gonna do today. So
I'm gonna take a little bit of this water and
I'm gonna put it in here and I'm gonna scrape off the bottom and see if I can get as much of the flavor
That's left in here into this pot. The rest of the water just goes into the pot now earlier. I gave a ratio of
vegetable weight to water weight
You don't have to be super pedantic about that
Okay
Now this pot is full
Absolutely full right to the top, so I need to be very careful
But I am gonna stick it back in the oven the ovens already heated to 300 degrees Fahrenheit
300 degrees Fahrenheit is the perfect temperature to extract the flavor into the water
And this will go I'm gonna say about an hour. So let's be very careful here
I'll see you in an hour
Here we go, look at that
The color is amazing. So I'm going to use a spider and
scoop out as much of
The vegetable mass as I possibly can now
You don't have to do this
Straight out of the oven or straight off of the stovetop you can wait for the soup to cool down a little bit
If you wait, it just makes it easier to handle
You're not gonna burn yourself and if you splash everywhere, it's not gonna be quite as bad
But let's see if we can pour this off without getting it everywhere
Didn't spill too much not bad. Okay big reveal taste test. Let's see what we've got here
The color is deep. And rich this the aroma is coming off. This are amazing. So the flavor should be great, too
Yeah deep rich
Almost has that
You know how your lips stick together with a really good beef stock or a really good pork or chicken stock because it's
That's great now a couple things to be aware of
Be careful with the seaweed
The first couple times I did it I put too much seaweed in and if you're not accustomed to the seaweed flavor
It'll be too strong. So be careful with the seaweed
Start it with a small piece and then kind of work your way up to get the texture that you're looking for
And also the other vegetables that you put in you can play with them
Like I said earlier with anything you like as you can see by the color
This is not the kind of vegetable stock that you can use in a lot of really light flavored soups
You can pretty much put this head-to-head with any beef stock in any soup, and I doubt that
Most people would know that you would used vegetable stock. So stay tuned over the next couple of weeks
We're gonna make some soups with this. Thanks for stopping by. See you again soon
