Vegetable Stock
The base of any good soup is to start out with a good stock. You can easily make your own by just throwing in the necessary stock ingredients into a large pot and allowing the flavours to infuse into the water for the allocated time.
If you’re buying a store bought stock, choose ones that are free from preservatives and too much sodium, sometimes I find them a tad salty and end up using half stock half water. Once the stock part is sorted the soup is half way there. Here is my recipe for a simple healthy stock that can form the base of any healthy soup or stew this winter.
2 onions, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 stick celery, chopped
2 litres water
few parsley stalks
1 teaspoon whole black or white peppercorns
10 cm piece kombu (optional) ( kombu is a seaweed high in minerals)
Combine all the ingredients into a large pot and simmer over a low heat for about 1 – 1/2 houra, adding more water if needed. Strain and discard solids. Store stock for 4 days in the fridge or freeze until required.
VARIATION: For an Asian inspired Master Stock that is delicious with vegetables, chicken, fish dishes add the following to the base recipe 20 minutes before straining:
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
1 stick cassia bark
2 star anis
60 ml wheat free tamari soy sauce
80 ml shoaxing wine (Chinese cooking wine) or mirin
Hi – love your recipes, especially the vegetarian and gluten free ones. I was wondering what is ‘kombu’ & where do you get it please?
Kombu is a seaweed high in minerals. You can get it in most supermarkets, Asian grocers or health food stores.
x
Finally did it! I have been ‘thinking about’ making my own stock for years, as I hate the ‘junk’ and excess salt in packaged ones. So worth it – actually was really easy, and tastes so much BETTER. I used a piece of wakame seaweed – was told by large busy health food shop they can’t get kombu anymore as its recently banned from coming into Oz – some political argument over iodine levels!?