Name: Vegetable Stock
Yield: Makes About 4.5 Litres (8 pints)
Cuisine: China
Ingredients: 8 garlic cloves, crushed; 6 slices fresh root ginger; 6 spring onions; 2 tablespoons groundnut oil; 1 tablespoon whole Szechuan peppercorns; 1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns; 4 bay leaves; 25 g (1 oz) Chinese dried mushrooms; 900 g (2 lb) Chinese leaves (Peking cabbage); 4 leeks; 4 celery sticks; 900 g (2 lb) onions; 2 tablespoons Shoaxing rice wine or dry sherry; 4.5 litres (8 pints) water; 3 tablespoons light soy sauce; 2 tablespoons salt; 900 g (2 lb) carrots; 225 g (8 oz) shallots

Preparation info

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Ken Hom's Hot Wok

By Ken Hom

Published 1996

About

Vegetable stock can be tasty and light. Stir-frying vegetables in the wok with oil before simmering helps to impart a wonderful smoky flavour to the stock. Use the recipe as it is or, by all means, experiment and suit your own taste. You can cut the quantities in half the recipe makes too much for your needs.

Ingredients

25 g (1 oz) Chinese dried mushrooms
900 g (2

Method

Soak the dried mushrooms in warm water for 20 minutes, drain them, squeeze out any excess liquid and coarsely chop the caps and stems. Strain and reserve the mushroom liquid. Coarsely chop the carrots, Chinese leaves, celery and onions. Wash, cut and discard the green part of the leeks and coarsely chop the white portion. Peel the shallots but leave them whole.

Heat a large pan or wok o