How to make Vegetable stock/broth at home

Vegetable stock is a must have ingredient for sauces, soups or gravies. I was planning to include some soups in my diet, then there vegetable stock was the foremost requirement. I prepared some good amount of vegetable stock from scratch to refrigerate for further use. Homemade vegetable stock is more rich, flavourful and fresh than store-bought. And they give flavorsome taste to soups cooked with it. One such soup which I cooked the same night with freshly prepared stock is soon coming next.

Vegetable stock is simple to prepare with just few points required to be taken in notice. Check out those points in “Notes” section. Various ingredients and vegetables used therein have different roles in providing distinctive features to stock- Give a look:

Tomatoes – tartness and colour
Carrots, corn – sweetness
Potatoes – body or thick texture
Cabbage, celery, broccoli, green beans – earthiness

Mushrooms – meatiness
Onions, garlic – a slight spiciness

This will help in adjusting the ingredients as per your requirement of the stock. For vegetable stock you’ll always have choice to include vegetables of your preferences.  Have a look at the recipe of the vegetable stock which I prepared using vegetables I had in hand.

Recipe

Time Taken-For Preparation-15 min

For Cooking- 45 min

Yield- 3-4 cups

Category-Homemade Edibles

Ingredients

Tomato-1 large

Potato-1 medium (peeled)

Onion-1 medium (peeled)

French Beans- 8-10

Guar beans/cluster beans (gavar phali) – 5-8

Cilantro-2 sprigs

Garlic-2 (peeled)

Pepper-1/8 tsp or Peppercorns-4-6

Bay leaf-1

Salt-a pinch (optional)

Water-6 cups

Steps to follow

1. Wash all vegetables.
2. Roughly chop tomato, potato, onion, beans, guar beans and cilantro. No need to chop garlic.
3. Place a deep pan filled with water to boil. Add all chopped vegetables.
4. When it starts boiling, add other remaining ingredients and lower the flame to low-medium and let it simmer lid closed for 45-60 minutes. No need to stir in between.
5. Turn off flame; strain it through colander or fine mesh strainer pressing vegetables and let it cool down to room temp.
6. Fill it in a jar and refrigerate it or freeze in ice-cubes tray & thaw as and when required.

Notes-

1. If you want darker coloured stock, caramelize onion first in some amount of vegetable oil and sauté other remaining vegetables for sometime (don’t brown them), then move to add water and other aromatics & seasoning ingredients like peppercorns, bay leaf etc.
2. You can add your choice of vegetables like other recommended vegetables are carrot, celery, broccoli, mushroom, cabbage etc.
3. The prepared stock should be sweet, translucent, clear and light coloured.
4. For comparatively thicker stock, you can use water of boiled potatoes instead of plain water.
5. You can add very small amount of salt or omit using it as the soup or sauce you’ll prepare, will have its own seasoning. I added just a small pinch.
6. Shelf life of homemade stock lasts for 3-4 days when refrigerated and can be kept longer when frozen but it’s better to use within 3 days.
7. Vegetable peels and scraps can also be added in stock. You can preserve peels in a zipper lock bag in freezer

Related articles

• Flavour Tree Vegetable Stock (harvesthub.com.au)
• Let’s start with the basics – stock for soups (youneedmoregarlic.wordpress.com)