A staple in the kitchen and when making soups, stews or various sauces, vegetable stock is super easy to make and so much tastier than your standard stock cube! It basically boils down to chopping up some veg, or perhaps utilising some peelings, throwing it in some water and allowing it to simmer away.
Here’s what we put in our glorious veg stock:
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 2 carrots
- 2 leeks
- 4 celery sticks
- 1 bay leaf
- Bunch of wild garlic
- Bunch of cow parsley
Here are the core ingredients, but to give the brother a little more depth we like to add:
- Whole peppercorns
- Leek tops
- Fennel
It’s also great that you can add in all the peelings/scraps of any of the above ingredients too. Nothing needs to go to waste, plus they’re full of flavour. Tip: keep a freezer bag so you can add peelings as you go, accumulating ingredients for your stock!
Method:
- Wash the ingredients – we don’t want any dirt in our vegetable stock
- Chop them – shape isn’t crucial. We recommend chunks
- Simmer away. Add the vegetables to a large pot, pop in some salt and pepper and add approximately 2.5 litres of water. As soon as it hits a boil, bring it down to a simmer
- Leave covered for an hour
- Finally, strain the stock. Make sure you remove all the veg and peppercorns
When adding the seasoning, we like to go steady on the salt. We find that throughout the simmering process, the salt levels can intensify. Test and taste as you go along.
Once the stock is ready, you can use it straight away, or you can freeze it, ready to use for whenever you want to enhance a meal. Foods which you may traditionally cook in water like couscous or rice can now be cooked using your tasty stock, or follow our Wild Minestrone recipe where you can test out your new stock!
Enjoy!
