pages

Monday, February 20, 2012

The Stocks: Not Just For Punishment Anymore


This is a primer post for any of you guys interested in making stocks. I used to use the Martha Stewart guide to making stocks, until four or five of the chefs here pointed out some very obvious flaws in it.

One of the things I love most about the Kushi Institute is that there's hardly any waste. We have one bag of trash for the kitchen that we take out every 4-5 days, which is INSANE for a restaurant. At my last job, we took out 4 bags of trash a day, and that was for the same volume of people. We compost what we can, and save for the soup stock the savory parts of the vegetables that would enhance our soups.

The recipes on Snackrobiotic use Vegetable Stock, Mushroom Stock, and Dashi Soup Stock. I'm providing a list of substitutions that these stocks are great for. In American, European, and Asian cooking, beef, chicken, and pork stocks are all featured heavily. You don't need to sacrifice flavor for a vegan/macrobiotic diet!

Benefits of homemade vegan and macrobiotic stocks:
-No animal products (optional fish if you're macro but not vegan)
-No hidden yeast or sugar
-You control the sodium (optional no sodium)
-"Live" bacteria and live food, not freeze-dried or processed
-Seaweed stocks replace valuable minerals that are often depleted in our bodies
-Mushroom stocks cleanse the body of built-up animal fat and toxin deposits
-BEAUCOUP CHEAPER. For those of you on a money diet like me, how about not adding an extra $4 to your meal? Yeah, pretty cool.
-Saves waste. No packaging from purchased stock, less wasted food.

Stock Theory
For your basic stock, I'll provide you with a list of commonly composted/thrown away items. Keep this in a bowl in your fridge and cover, saving no more than 2-3 days before use. If you're not making a big "show horse" soup, you can simply use the stock to jazz up your morning miso.

Things that you shouldn't stock:
-Non-organic ingredients. Simmering the skins of non-organic veggies that have been coated in pesticides and fungicides does not feel terribly safe.
-Onion skins. The outer paper skins make the stock bitter. I usually compost the outer paper skins, and remove the first layer of the paper/juicy inner skin for the stock, just so my onion cuts smoothly. This layer is particularly succulent in the stock! I don't use the onion top, but I do use the onion bottom. Some skin attached to that is OK.
-Kale/Collard stems. They don't really do anything, and they turn the water green.
-Rotten/Pocked skin or vegetal material. If it's slick, damp, broken, moldy, hairy, or decomposing, let it go, man.

Things you should definitely stock:
-Cabbage hearts (the dense part on the inside that looks like a spider when you cut it in half)
-Green onion bottoms
-Leek bottoms
-Onion bottoms/inner layers
-Mushroom bottoms
-Celery leaves/roots
-Carrot tops/bottoms/skin
-Rutabaga/Turnip tops (if you want a sweeter flavor)
-Squash tops/bottoms/skins (not the woody part, but any leftovers)

All of the above combined and simmered for half an hour make...
Vegetable Stock!

Mushroom Stock
This one's easy. For a basic mushroom stock, I wait for a day that I'm making a dish with lots of shitaake mushrooms, and I save the soaking water. This hearty, "beefy" stock can be seasoned gently with sea salt and used in any dish calling for beef or pork stock. I use it sometimes in vegan shabu-shabu (replacing beef with thinly sliced shitaake mushrooms).

Dashi Stock
Dashi is a great basis for Japanese dishes. It's fantastic as a starter for morning miso, can be used in my Kimchee Soup recipe, and is fantastic as a basis for udons. When I'm feeling sad and lazy, I buy hon-dashi premade from the stores, but the macro way is to make it from scratch.

12 c. water
2 pieces kombu seaweed
2-3 c. shaved bonito flakes (NOT VEGAN. If you want to go vegan here, I'd just do kombu with 1-2 tbsp. tamari and a pinch of sea salt)

I invented this recipe based on our method for brewing tea at the tea shop. I take a Size 4 t-sac and stuff it with bonito. I staple or fold it shut (I don't think stapling is terribly macro, but sometimes I get lazy) I boil the ingredients for half an hour to 45 minutes, until the soup stock takes on a dark, rich color. I season with sea salt, tamari, and mirin to taste. Usually 2-3 tbsp. mirin.

I hope you guys enjoyed this primer course and will have many happy days of stock-making in your future!

1 comment:

  1. I love this post!!!! I've been trying to keep leftovers for stock in the freezer, but it's pretty much a bag of compost because I never knew which parts to keep and which to throw away.

    <3 <3

    ReplyDelete