Vegetable stock paste
Day by day my cooking is moving further away from processed food or products that are mass produced. It is not the easiest thing to cook with those principles, and I definitely can’t see myself being completely self-sufficient or live the rest of my days hunting and gathering. But testing recipes that remove a pre-packed ingredient gives me hours of entertainment. Especially when the results work out well.
We get through a lot of vegetable stock in my house, mainly as a soup base – a staple in our weekly menu – but also because I use a lot of coconut milk in my cooking (we follow the paleo diet) and vegetable stock helps me tie in the sweetness of coconut milk in savoury dishes.
In the past I have tried to buy the least chemically modified stock I can find in the shops. I used to buy an organic brand, with no added flavours, but when cooking with it I always had these intrusive thoughts that the flavor in my food was coming from a powder. Not to mention all the added salt!
So the research began, and I am so pleased with the final result. I actually can’t believe it took me this long to try it! It requires a little time to mix all the vegetables together to get the paste texture (I couldn’t have done it without m trusty kitchen utensils!), but a little goes a long way with this recipe. I filled 4x 320mls jars with the stock, so I won’t be needing to make it again for a while.
Vegetable stock paste
2 medium carrots
1 shallot
4 celery sticks
1 courgette
1 onion
Handful of parsley
6 garlic cloves
4 bay leaves
1 tsp black pepper corns
1 tbsp of thyme, leaves only
1 tsp coriander seeds
Rock salt – you’ll need 15g to every 100g of vegetables
1. Prepare the carrots, the shallots, celery, courgette, onion, garlic e parsley. Peel the vegetbles that need peeling and make sure that the parsley bunch is thoroughly dry, in order not to add any extra water to the paste.
2. Weight the vegetables and write it down. Now here’s the formula: 15x (weight of vegetables)/100. The result is the amount of salt you should use, in grams. I had 1100g of vegetables so 15×1100/100 = 165g of salt
3. In a food processor or blender mix the salt, pepper, coriander seeds and bay leaves. In case the pepper corns don’t blitz properly finish it off with a pestle and mortar
4. I made the paste according to my kitchen gadgets. I chopped the vegetables, and little by little I blitzed them in my food processor, then I blended it all with the seasoning in a blender. Stop it and scrap the sides from time to time. A stick blender can work here too.
5. Pour the paste into sterilized jars and close it firmly with lids. The salt with help conserve the paste for several months, and you don’t have to keep the jars in the fridge, just make sure you keep them in a cool, aired cupboard. Keep it in the fridge after opening the jar.
6. Use 2 tsp of the paste for every 500mls of water.
