Puneeta Chhitwal-Varma’s new book, Good Food, Healthy Planet, will soon be on everyone’s wish list for the ultimate guide to cooking sustainably. The first recipe in the book is the easiest and will quickly become one of your cooking staples. Writes Chhitwal-Varma: “There’s a reason this recipe is first in this section. A good quality stock can be a key building block for infinite meals. Coincidentally, this recipe is also easy to follow, mostly handsfree and helps reduce waste in the kitchen. To make this stock, I collect vegetable scraps and peels and ends of this and that in a jar in the fridge all week long, and then come Sunday afternoon everything goes into a big pot to simmer for an hour or two. That’s it – joy with ease; it’s the best kind.”
Scrap Vegetable Stock
Ingredients
- 3 cups vegetable trimmings for example: asparagus ends; carrot peels and base; celery, fennel and leek ends; cucumber and apple skins; ginger and garlic peels and bits; green bean and snap pea tails; onion ends (limit to ½ cup due to strong flavour); potato peels
- 2 black cardamom pods
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tsp fennel seeds
- ½ tsp peppercorns
Instructions
- Rinse the vegetable trimmings and place them in a big soup pot. Add enough water to cover everything. Note: Some of the water will evaporate during the cooking process, so start with as much as your pot will hold and add more as needed.
- Bring it to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer. Add the whole spices and continue to simmer for 1½ hours. Turn the heat off.
- After the liquid has cooled, strain the mixture out. Press out every last drop of stock from the bits in the strainer to draw out the flavour and nutritional goodness.
- Use the stock straightaway or refrigerate it for up to a week. You can also freeze it in freezer-friendly glass jars for up to 5 months.
- Thaw and use as needed in risotto, daal, stew, pulao, biryani, soup, etc.
Notes
