Author Topic: Really stuck, what to use as a basic vegetable stock for soups, stews, risottos  (Read 11914 times)

Jeannine

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I agree with the pressure cooker idea, you can make a strong stock in that as you need so little water and tailor to taste.
When God blesses you with a multitude of seeds double  the blessing by sharing your  seeds with other folks.

Crystalmoon

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Hi everyone sorry for my delayed reply & thank you all for your great ideas.
Sadly I am allergic to all mushrooms. I checked with my allergy doctor & he thinks fermented foods would be problematic too....sigh. I have never owned a pressure cooker but will definitely have a good think about whether to get one....they always scared me as a child back in the 70's I seem to remember some blowing up lol but I am sure they are very sophisticated nowadays. My first few batches of veg stock made by boiling up off cuts of veg went well & are usable but no where near as tasty as regular stock. I am going to continue to experiment but think that I may have to admit defeat at some point & just accept that a good chicken stock would be best.
Many thanks to you all
 Jane

galina

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Sadly I am allergic to all mushrooms. I checked with my allergy doctor & he thinks fermented foods would be problematic too....sigh. I have never owned a pressure cooker but will definitely have a good think about whether to get one....they always scared me as a child back in the 70's I seem to remember some blowing up lol but I am sure they are very sophisticated nowadays.  Jane

Great shame about mushrooms and ferments.

Well my pressure cooker is very simple.  It has an opening through which steam escapes and a set of weights that sit on top of the opening and 'jiggle' when steam is up.  The lighter weight means less pressure, the heavier more and both weights together, the highest pressure of steam.   Can't see how this arrangement could possibly explode.  Once steam is up, you will need to find the right number on your gas or electric cooker regulator, to keep it that just a little steam escapes, but it is still under steam.  What I hate is that you have to wait after cooking until the pressure drops to zero before opening the pressure cooker.  However you can put it in the sink and run a bit of cold water over it to speed up the process.

BTW  if you preserve goodies in jars the pressure cooker way, you must never cool it down in the sink (just a side remark)

You won't regret getting one, Crystalmoon, they have many uses.  :wave: 

Jeannine

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Re pressure cookers. I have used one all my life as did my Mum and Galinas description is good, however there is another type now. I bought one about 4 years ago it is Swedish and called a Kuhn Rikon duomatic  and it is a little different. It hisses when it is coming to pressure and then runs silent when it is up, there are red lines on the valve and you hold the pressure at one or the other depending on the pressure you want. To relieve the pressure after cooking there is a thingy on the top you press and release a few times and it takes may be half a minute to become back to normal pressure. I find I can pressure something with much less water then my other ones. I loved my high dome Prestige but it was loaned out and not returned when I was in the UK. I went to Argos and bought a new one .I returned it, it was so cheap and light compared to the old one, this is when I investigated and bought the Swedish one. The only time  a cooker would ever blow up is if it ran dry AND the emergency escape valve was blocked, this is something that you control, so I wouldn't worry at all. I grew up with the hissing so after 60 years of it I have never known one blow.

If you do use chicken to make your stock, buy backs and necks, and brown them to a good color on a high heat in the oven before you make the stock, it will be much more tasty.Or buy an old boiling hen, very cheap and makes good stock.

I have added a picture, mine is the taller version but it shows the different type of top

Good luck, it must be difficult to cook with so many allergies

XX Jeannine
« Last Edit: September 23, 2016, 19:07:18 by Jeannine »
When God blesses you with a multitude of seeds double  the blessing by sharing your  seeds with other folks.

Crystalmoon

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Thank you for the reassurance Galina & Jeannine I will definitely look into getting one & probably ask santa to bring it to me lol  :toothy10:

galina

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If you do use chicken to make your stock, buy backs and necks, and brown them to a good color on a high heat in the oven before you make the stock, it will be much more tasty.Or buy an old boiling hen, very cheap and makes good stock.


Thanks Jeannine, I did not know about this different type of pressure cooker and have googled it.  Mine is a hi-dome, sorry yours wasn't returned, just shows that they are really desirable and useful  :BangHead:

Another way to make chicken stock is to take the carcass of a carved, roasted chicken and the cooking juices (most of which will set as aspic jelly) and stick it in the slow cooker with peppercorns or chilis, a whole onion or garlic and celery leaves or stems.  This goes in in the evening and the next day a great stock has developed.  Depending on carving skills, there is usually plenty of meat left as well.  I strain the lot,  get all the meat off, cut the onion and add whatever is available to make a full, thick dinner soup.  Love to top it with roasted pumpkin seeds or with one of the really posh oils, like pumpkin oil or walnut oil. 

Or I decant into freezer containers and freeze until needed.  Caution though - frozen stock expands and I have recently found a glass jar broken in the freezer that I had obviously overfilled.  :BangHead:  Now I leave at least an inch space at the top.    :wave:

nasturtium

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Marigold Bouillon Powder is pretty amazing, found at Waitrose, Sainsbury's and maybe others as well as local health food shops.  They do a vegan one, no dairy.  Not sure about all of the other ingredients, so double check with your allergies.  Also making your own and freezing in convinent sizes is a good option. 

Elfeda

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Crystalmoon,

I have cluster bean seeds if you are not allergic to them ( usually I find alot of diff these from beans)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1065795/
and can you eat okra and bittergourd?  seems you can eat sqaush and brassicas?
« Last Edit: October 14, 2016, 14:54:41 by Elfeda »

Elfeda

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and can you eat OKRA?

Vinlander

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Its a long thread this, so I used a browser find to check for the word olive.

It isn't there - which might mean you could use black olives (which are just ripe olives and salt) - ? A pretty obvious source of the savoury flavour you need. You could make your own tapenade and use it as a stock cube.

Hope this helps.

Cheers.

PS. It seems almost certain that humans couldn't have colonised the globe so quickly if they hadn't used the resources available along the seashore - that meant they could avoid having to laboriously (and dangerously) test all the potentially deadly plants that grew in any new ecosystem they encountered. I respect everyone's right to eat whatever they want but if it threatened my health I'd change in an instant. Eating seafood solves so many nutritional problems in one shot - eating chicken isn't as good but on the other hand I've never heard any hint of a chicken allergy.
With a microholding you always get too much or bugger-all. (I'm fed up calling it an allotment garden - it just encourages the tidy-police).

The simple/complex split is more & more important: Simple fertilisers Poor, complex ones Good. Simple (old) poisons predictable, others (new) the opposite.

Crystalmoon

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Hi Nasturtium sadly I can't use Marigold as it contains things I am allergic to.

Hi Elfeda I have never tried Okra or Bittergourd so I have no idea if I will react badly to them or not....I will have a look at what plant family they are from as many of my fruit & veg allergies seem to be with certain plant groups.  I am fine with all the squash family as far as I know & also with Brassicas. I have never heard of cluster beans so thank you for the link I will have a look in a minute.

Hi Vinlander what a brilliant idea it never crossed my mind to use olives & I am fine with them so I will be experimenting with them soon  :happy7:

Crystalmoon

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Hi again Elfeda yes I do grow cluster beans I just hadn't heard them called that before. Thank you for your kind offer of seeds I actually have lots of seeds to try next year from this group of veg & look forward to trying them out

galina

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Hi again Elfeda yes I do grow cluster beans I just hadn't heard them called that before. Thank you for your kind offer of seeds I actually have lots of seeds to try next year from this group of veg & look forward to trying them out

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guar

Elfeda, do you mean this bean?  And can it be grown in UK climate?  :wave:

Obelixx

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I think you could make a very decent stock form lots of onions, carrots and herbs.   Chicken or ham bones would add depth and then you'd just need to reduce it till it's strong enough.   Store in batches in the freezer and use as needed.

Can you eat sweet potatoes?  Celeriac or lovage to replace celery?  Either way, lots of lovely soups and stews and casseroles can be made using root veggies, pumpkins, squashes, lentils and beans.   Scatter with toasted seeds for a tasty, crunchy and nutritious garnish.
Obxx - Vendée France

Elfeda

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Galina, yes it's same guar bean. thought it can grow in green house..  , I would be interested to know more about growing them in uk though.

Crystalmoon

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Hi Obelixx yes I can have sweet potatoes & celeriac....I am not sure about the lovage I would have to check what plant family it is from as my allergies definitely seem to be related to certain plant families & I assume to the natural plant defence chemicals & as I only eat organic produce I also assume the plants' natural defence chemicals are stronger than in normal shop bought mass produced stuff. I can't have lentils or dried beans like chickpeas or kidney beans but so far I have been ok with other legumes if they are fresh such as green beans, peas etc. I've got some new varieties of soup pea seeds to try out next season so only time will tell if they cause me problems or not. I've been using the stalks of chard as a celery replacement & it is working quite well.
I did manage to make a surprisingly tasty soup from courgettes chard & various herbs...it was very green lol but tasty 

Vinlander

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If chard is OK then beets should be too - though red beet isn't very versatile because it bleeds into everything.

However the chioggia bullseye beet doesn't bleed and can be used in significant quantities to add an earthy sweetness to soups and stews (and coleslaw). You might find this earthy taste hits some of the buttons we associate with savoury stocks.

Golden beet is even nicer but the yield is much poorer (when I grow it).

Incidentally chard stalks are a poor substitute for celery flavour, though I have been known to make "braised celery"  by adding lots of ground celery seed and cumin to braised chard stalks.

Have you tried florence fennel? - it is just as nice as celery in its own way (and still in season). If you can eat celeriac then obviously you are OK with some umbellifers and not others (?)

Hope this helps.

Cheers.
With a microholding you always get too much or bugger-all. (I'm fed up calling it an allotment garden - it just encourages the tidy-police).

The simple/complex split is more & more important: Simple fertilisers Poor, complex ones Good. Simple (old) poisons predictable, others (new) the opposite.

Obelixx

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Lovage is a strongly flavoured herb that tastes of celery.   A little goes a long way.

Celeriac is a variety of celery cultivated for its roots rather than its stems.

Fennel has a light aniseed flavour and is great in salads or baked with Parmesan cheese but maybe you could just roast chunks of it with some olive oil and garlic and pine nuts.
Obxx - Vendée France

Crystalmoon

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Hi Vinlander yes beetroot is definitely ok & I do make beetroot soup...I haven't tried the Chioggia Bullseye variety so will get some seeds for next year as a beetroot that doesn't stain my kitchen sounds like a great new friend  :happy7: I also haven't grown gloden beetroot before...I will buy some & try it out. I do eat fennel of all sorts to no ill effect. I wouldn't be able to use celery seeds but cumin seems to be ok. I will have to look up umbellifers & see what is in the list to make sure I'm not eating things I shouldn't be....I think Celeriac is probably a no go area now I realise it is celery.

Hi Obelixx I probably shouldn't have Celeriac then if it is a type of celery...I am still at the trial & error stage with much of this & as I had only eaten Celeriac once this year before my allergy testing it didn't show up...I suppose because it wasn't in my system. I don't grow Celeriac & very rarely feel the urge to buy it so if it has to be added to the no go list of foods I won't miss it.   

Crystalmoon

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I just checked umbellifers & I am definitely ok with most of them carrots, parsnip, parsley etc. That made me wonder about Celery & a quick internet search shows it to be a known allergen so allergies to it are common apparently.....I have never heard of it before! I'm on a steep learning curve with my new diet restrictions but I have to say it is working, my pain levels have dropped very significantly & my mobility is better...I am no longer on daily steroids or even daily antihistamines so it is worth it xJane

 

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