In our view, a green kitchen is one that uses all possible parts of the ingredients that come into it. Food waste has a huge environmental impact, one report from the Food Climate Research Network estimates that it is as high as 30-50% of all food we produce globally. Think of all the amazing dishes we could make, and the money we could save, if we were just a little more creative with off cuts and kitchen scraps. Chicken stock is a mainstay of my kitchen, in Emily’s it’s veggie scrap stock. We’re sharing both of our recipes with you, and a brilliant zero-waste spring soup that can use either.

Chicken Stock

Chicken stock is an essential in my kitchen – no matter how bare the cupboard may be, I can always fashion a meal in a jiffy, using this rich and golden broth as a base. It’s a brilliant way to use make use of the entire chicken, not just the tender flesh. In this recipe, I use a whole, raw chicken and simmer it for one hour. The bird is then removed from the pot, the cooked meat taken off the bones, and the carcass and skin are returned to the pot to simmer for another few hours. The resulting stock is rich and fragrant, and this preparation also means that I have plenty of super-tender poached chicken for adding to soups and salads. If you have roasted a chicken and are looking to use the carcass, see the variation notes on making stock with just bones. I put a huge emphasis on chicken that is pasture-raised from a small scale farm, believing that it’s worth the extra money and if used wisely can be stretched over many meals.

Makes 3 quarts (3 litres) | Equipment: A 10-quart pasta pot fitted with a colander; a fine-mesh skimmer; dampened cheesecloth.

Ingredients

2 large onions, halved lengthwise but not peeled
4 whole cloves
1 farm-fresh chicken, about 5 pounds
Pinch of salt
4 carrots, scrubbed but not peeled, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 head of garlic, halved but not peeled
4 ribs celery
1 leek (white and tender green parts), halved lengthwise, washed, and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 ounce trimmed and peeled fresh ginger
12 whole white peppercorns
1 Bouquet garni: Several bay leaves, celery leaves, sprigs of thyme, and parsley, encased in a wire-mesh tea infuser

Method

1. Spear the onion with a long-handled, two-pronged fork, and hold them directly over a gas flame (or directly on an electric burner) until scorched. Stick a clove into each of the onion halves. (Scorching the onions will give the broth a richer flavor. The onion skin also serves to “dye” the stock a rich, golden color.)

2. Place the chicken in the pasta pot and fill with 5 quarts of cold water. Add the onions, salt, carrots, garlic, celery, leek, ginger, and white peppercorns, and bouquet garni. Bring to a gentle simmer, uncovered, over medium heat. Skim to remove any scum that rises to the surface. Add additional cold water to replace the water removed and continue skimming until the broth is clear.

3. After about 1 hour, removed the chicken from the pot. Remove the chicken meat, removing the skin. Return the skin and the carcass to the pot. Continue cooking at a gentle simmer for 2 1/2 hours more.

4. Line a large colander with a double layer of dampened cheesecloth and place the colander over a large bowl. Ladle -- do not pour -- the liquid into the sieve, to strain off any remaining fat and impurities. Discard the solids. Measure. If the stock exceeds 3 quarts, return to moderate heat and reduce. Transfer the stock to covered containers.

5. Immediately refrigerate the stock, and spoon off all traces of fat that rise to the surface. The stock may be refrigerated for 3 days, or can be frozen for up to 3 months.

Variations

Use 2 whole chicken carcasses rather than a whole, raw chicken (chicken bones freeze wells so you can save bones as you go until you have enough to make a stock). The resulting stock will not have the same clean, fresh flavor as that make with a while chicken, but it is worthy nonetheless. One can also use about 4 pounds of inexpensive chicken necks, backs or even feet to prepare the stock. As with saving the bones, try collecting the skins, roots and ends of onions, garlic, leeks, carrots and ginger to add to the stock as well. Store them in a container in the freezer until you have collected enough to add to the stock.

Veggie Scrap Stock

Creating something new from what you might normally throw away feels a little bit like kitchen magic. They might not be much to look at, but onion and garlic skins, carrot and ginger peelings, leek roots and greens and tough fennel stalks hold a ton of flavor and nutrition and can be easily transformed into also sorts of delicious treats with a little bit of imagination.  A favorite way to use up these normally discarded scraps is to create a fragrant vegetable broth to use as the base for soups, risottos, curries and stews. Simply  keep a container in your freezer, adding your peelings every time you cook, until you have accumulated enough to make a batch of stock. What could be more simple, economical and resourceful? 

As with any vegetable stock, stay away from cruciferous vegetables such as cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage whose flavors tender to be too overpowering. Go for sweeter vegetables such as onions, garlic, carrots, pumpkins, leeks, fennel and even pea pods. Include any roots, skins, seeds and tough ends. To balance out the sweet notes I like to add in umami-rich ingredients such as mushroom stalks, dried mushrooms (like shiitake or cep/porcini), Parmesan rinds (which keep for months in the freezer) and kombu – the thick Japanese seaweed. The resulting flavor is earthy, slightly sweet with a touch of umami, light years better than any flavor you can get from a commercial stock cube and with none of the nasty additives.                

Note that this is only a guide and you can make any quantity of stock for the amount of scraps you have. The below recipe makes approximately 1.5 liters of stock.

Ingredients

8–10 cups veggie scraps, rinsed
1 onion (with skin) quartered
2 carrots, roughly chopped
4 garlic cloves, halved (but with skins on) and green germ removed
2-3 shiitake mushrooms
1 piece of kombu
10 whole peppercorns
1 teaspoon sea salt

Method

Place all the ingredients in a large pot, cover with water, and simmer, partially covered, for about 15-30 minutes, depending on how strong you want your stock to be. Strain and store the stock in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days or in the freezer for several months.

Radish Leaf Soup

If you’ve been throwing away the leaves from your bunches of radishes (or turnips!), stop now! The tender leaves are completely edible and full of flavor and are a wonderful ingredient to add to a spring soup. The leaves tend to loose their freshness quickly so if you are not planning on making this soup immediately after buying, remove the leaves and stalks from the radishes, rinse them and quickly blanch them in boiling water for one minute. Run under cold water to cool, then squeeze out the excess water and store them in an airtight container in the freezer.

Ingredients

3 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, peeled and cut into half moons
Fine sea salt
1 bunch radish leaves, rinsed
2 medium zucchini, trimmed and coarsely chopped (about 1 pound)
2 bintje potatoes, peeled and coarsely chopped (about 1/2 pound)
3 cups homemade veggie scrap stock or chicken stock
Sheep’s milk yogurt, fresh herbs or micro-greens,
and thinly sliced radishes, for garnish

Method

1. In a stock pot, sweat the onions and salt in the olive oil. Add the radish leaves, zucchini, potatoes, and stock. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer for 10 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked through.

2. Transfer the mixture to a blender and blend until smooth. Taste for seasoning. Serve garnished with swirls of yogurt, herbs and radishes.

Nourish the Planet is a collaborative series by Patricia Wells and Emily Buchanan.
© 2020 – All rights reserved. Please do not reproduce any of these recipes without permission.

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