Make That Flavor Water

I promised you a fun day of stock, and now I deliver!

I'm going to share a basic vegetable stock recipe, this particular version is a great replacement for chicken stock. So here we go!

Ingredients:
Onion                  2#
Celery                 1#
Carrot                 1#
Mushrooms         1#              
Leek                   1 EA
Green Onion        1 Bunch      
Garlic                  1/2 Head
Lemon                 3 Slices
Rosemary            1 Sprig
Thyme                 4 Sprigs
Bay Leaf             1 EA
S & P                  TT

A smaller dice is important to draw more flavor in to the stock. I sweated the mirepoix, leek, and garlic that I had diced. Then added the rest of the ingredients, covered with water and placed on the stove top to simmer for 4 hours. Skim while it cooks! Then strain and you've got stock! It should make about 4 quarts.

So making stock is kind of boring, but it's also a chance to develop some serious depth of flavor. This recipe is being used for a southern-style dumplings recipe on Thursday. This is far from the only recipe you should settle on, add more mushrooms and keep out the lemon and you can start to get a darker, more earthy stock. Especially true if the recipe calls for something that can be made into a demiglace. We'll talk more about that later though. Foreshadowing...

So tomorrow we're going to do a non-dairy roux and veloute! Almost time for our dumplings!