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
you