Don’t let the ease of this recipe fool you. It qualifies as what we like to call a “foundational” recipe. It is quick, ridiculously simple (as the name implies), can be made in large batches, and has a practically infinite number of applications, as you’ll see in the coming weeks. Kyle stumbled across this on the New York Times website as part of a collection of simple stocks by Mark Bittman (of How to Cook Everything fame) and it seemed like the perfect way to provide vegetarian and gluten free soup and sauce options without sacrificing any flavor or investing too much time. Win/win.
If you have six cups of purified water, a pound and a half of mushrooms, and fifteen minutes that’s all you need to create this quick, flavorful, vegan stock. Once it’s done, you’ll have a fantastic means of imparting any vegetarian or vegan dish with impossibly complex base flavors. You can even step up those flavors by adding a finely diced mirepoix of carrots, onions and celery. Honestly, though, they aren’t really necessary, and skipping them not only saves time, it also allows the unadulterated earthy umami of the mushrooms to shine through.
Additionally, this base recipe is fairly adaptable. The original called for a mix of dried porcini and fresh button mushrooms. We opted to use all fresh button mushrooms–both the white and cremini varieties–because that’s what we had on hand, and the stock came out just fine. Better than fine, actually.
This stock makes a fantastic base for our French Onion Soup Dip and imparts a deep, deceptively meaty flavor to the Cauliflower Soup. Used with a gluten free roux, it also makes an out-of-this-world vegetarian gravy. All of those ideas aside, you can whip this up in a veritable flash, season it with a little salt and pepper to taste, and you have a great broth to warm your cockles and defrost your extremities after any winter activity. Having a steaming cup of this to look forward to even makes shoveling the driveway (again!) bearable. Sort of.
Keep an eye out, because this will be a go-to for many recipes to come. You can’t beat it for efficiency, cost effectiveness and utility, and as far as cooking goes, we love all of those things almost as much as we love eating.
Adapted from The New York Times.
- 1 pound button mushrooms, sliced
- 8 ounces cremini mushrooms, stems removed and caps sliced
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- Toss a pound of sliced button mushrooms, the sliced cremini mushroom caps and their stems into a large pot with 6 cups of water.
- Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low. Simmer 15 minutes.
- Strain out the mushrooms, then season with salt and pepper to taste.
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