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Dark roasted vegetable stock

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Bringing out rich flavor in a vegetable dish can be a challenge. Vegetables are often cooked with bacon or pancetta, soups are made with chicken stock, split pea soup or beans are cooked with a ham bone. How can we go to flavortown without using meat?

One good way is with a base of a good vegetable stock and if you reduce it down you can get a little more flavor out of it. Are there any ways to get even more flavor out of the vegetable stock? Yes, roast the vegetables first! By browning and caramelizing the vegetables first you coax out some more sugar and darkening it brings out a deeper richness. Picking the right vegetables is also important in getting good flavor from your stock. Mirepoix – a mix of 2 parts onion, one part each of carrots and celery is a great start, add a few other items like the delicate fragrance of leeks, sweetness of parsnips and celery root and what else? Mushrooms cover a flavor less known, umami , which is pleasantly savory and meaty. Roasting the mushrooms gets an even more complex flavor out of them as well as more dark color. Tomatoes also help with richer darker sweet flavor and color.

You don’t have to cook your vegetable stock very long – one hour is usually sufficient to get the flavors out and longer can actually make your stock slightly bitter. The stock recipes don’t call for salt so you can reduce them down and make them richer and more concentrated. The flavor may seem a little light but if you take a sample and add a little salt you will realize the flavors right away.

It does take some work to coax out the flavors in this version as you have to chop your vegetables small and roast them to get good color. It also takes twice as much vegetables because you loose a lot of volume when you roast them. Luckily onions, carrots and celery are pretty affordable.

Roasted vegetable stock

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Recipe by admin
Servings

servings
Prep time

5

minutes
Cooking time

2

hours 
Calories

kcal
Total time

0

minutes

The roasted vegetable stock has great flavor from the caramelizing of the vegetables. You lose a lot of volume when you roast the vegetables so the stock needs double the amount of vegetables that regular light vegetable stock takes. Like the other stocks the recipe does not have salt in it so you can reduce and concentrate the stock further but add a little salt when you taste it and the flavors will pop. This is a great base for making sauces for vegetarian dishes.
There are 2 variations in the notes, one to make a tomato stock and the other for mushroom stock.

Ingredients

  • 8 cups 8 water

  • 2 cups 2 vegetable oil

  • 4 cups 4 onions

  • 2 cups 2 carrots

  • 2 cups 2 celery

  • 1 cup 1 leeks

  • 1 cup 1 parsnips

  • 1 cup 1 celery root

  • 1 cup 1 mushrooms

  • 1 cup 1 tomatoes

  • 1 cup 1 shitake or portabella mushroom

  • 2 cloves 2 garlic

  • 4 sprigs 4 parsley

  • 2 whole 2 bay leaf

  • 1 tsp 1 thyme

  • 6 whole 6 black pepper

Directions

  • Wash the vegetables and chop them about 1 inch dice.
  • Heat your oven to 500 and heat the sheet pans empty in the oven. Toss the diced vegetables with the oil in a large bowl to mix and coat well. Remove the hot sheet pans from the oven and spread the vegetables in single layers on the hot pans, the vegetables will start to caramelize as soon as they hit the hot pans. Put back in the oven and roast until nicely browned about 20-30 minutes. Keep an eye on the vegetables so they do not burn and turn black.
  • When the vegetables are done, scrape them into the stockpot and add the water and seasoning. Bring the stock to a boil and immediately lower the heat to a simmer. Simmer for 60 minutes.
  • Turn the heat off and let the stock settle for 15 minutes. Strain twice and use, freeze or reduce.

Notes

  • Variation 1: roast 6 cups of tomatoes and add to the stock for great tomato stock.
  • Variation 2: roast 5 cups of mixed mushroom stems or mushrooms and add to the stock for a wonderful mushroom stock.

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