Vegetable stock is the main ingredient in almost all vegetarian soups. This can also be used for making many of the Chinese recipes. Home made vegetable stock is always better and tastier compared to what we getting as a canned product in the shops. The stock is usually made using all the left over vegetables. You can add almost all the vegetables available in your fridge to make the stock. The key for the vegetable stock is the amount of time that we are cooking the vegetables in the water. We should let atleast 30 minutes for cooking, however chefs recommend for upto 90 minutes of slow cooking for a perfect stock. First time when I tried vegetable soup, it did not taste as good as we have it in restaurants. Then I came to know that the vegetable stock is the main ingredient in any vegetarian soup especially in clear vegetable soup. Vegetable stock can be easily made and can be stored in refrigerator for upto 2 days.
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| Vegetable Stock Recipe |
Preparation and Yield:
| Preparation time | 10 mins |
| Cooking Time | 30 mins |
| Yield | 1.5 Litres |
Ingredients:
| Mixed Vegetables * | ½ Kg |
| Cinnamon Stick | 1 inch piece |
| Bay leaf | 2 |
| Star Anise | 1 |
| Peppercorns | 10 |
| Ginger | 1 inch piece |
| Garlic Cloves | 3-4 |
* Mixed Vegetables - Any vegetable of your choice - Carrot, Capsicum, Celery, Cabbage, Broccoli, Onion, Potato, Cauliflower. Some people do add Tomato, but i didn't add it as it gives slightly sour taste.
Method:
- Wash and roughly chop all the vegetables. We don't need to even peel the skin. I have seen many people just roughly chop the vegetables without even peeling the skin of onions, garlic, ginger etc. Add 2 litres of water to a sauce pan and bring it to boil. Add cinnamon stick, bay leaf, star anise, peppercorns to the water
- Add the vegetables and crushed ginger and garlic to the boiling water. We don't need to add any salt an this is one of the ingredient of soup which would already have salt. Cover the pan and keep the flame in low flame and allow it to boil for 30 minutes so that all the essence of the vegetables gets incorporated in the water. After 30 minutes, remove from flame and allow it to cool off and then strain the water through a strainer/muslin cloth. Discard the vegetables and take only the stock and store it in a pitcher/container.
- Now the Vegetable stock is ready.
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| Vegetable Stock Recipe |
