Name: Vegetable Stock
Yield: Yield: About 6 cups
Ingredients: Up to 1 cup zucchini or summer squash chunks, strips of mild lettuce, green Swiss chard leaves or stalks; 2 quarts cold water (quality is important here, so if you use bottled water for coffee or tea, use it here); Up to ¼ ounce dried mushrooms (soaked in 2 cups hot water for 30 minutes, or until soft, then rinsed for grit and finely chopped) Some liquid from soaking dried mushrooms (you can use leftover liquid from another recipe; just make sure you have strained the liquid through a sieve lined with a paper towel or a coffee filter to remove any remaining grit); 1 tomato (optional); ¼ cup celery leaves, or 1 teaspoon celery seed, crushed lightly; ½ pound fresh mushrooms, wiped clean (pieces and stems are fine; choose regular cultivated or shiitake mushrooms); 1 small turnip, scraped or, if waxed or thick-skinned, peeled and coarsely chopped; 4–6 fresh thyme sprigs, or ¼ teaspoon dried thyme; 1 teaspoon salt; 2 celery stalks, coarsely chopped; 10 fresh parsley sprigs; 1 small parsnip, peeled and coarsely chopped; 2 large onions, 1 coarsely chopped, 1 sliced rather thin; 2 medium carrots, scraped and diced; About 1 teaspoon soy sauce (optional); 1 bay leaf; 6–8 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed; 5 peppercorns, crushed; 2 tablespoons olive oil or unsalted butter, or 1 tablespoon of each

Preparation info

Yield: About
6 cups

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

The Gefilte Variations

By Jayne Cohen

Published 2000

About

Because vegetable stock is pareve, or neutral, that is, it contains neither meat nor dairy, according to the dietary laws, it may be eaten with either. But meat dishes generally rely on meat stocks; in Jewish cooking, it is foods glossed with butter or topped with cream that give vegetable stock its reason for being. Only vegetable stock can jazz up a plain pilaf destined to partner a butter-gilded fish. It is the sole stock base for a soup that will be enriched with sour cream or yogurt. A