Vegetable scraps stock

This is a fantastic recipe to use vegetable and herb scraps, while saving money on stock cubes. Reduced to a coarse paste preserved in salt, one or two spoons of this homemade mixture will make an excellent stock to add flavour to soups, risottos, or any dish for that matter. You can use onion stalks, leek tops, old carrots and their leaves, stems of parsley or coriander, scraps of celeriac or celery, fennel fronds and thyme, or any other leftovers to hand, with the exception of potato peels and leaf vegetables. You will also need some salt. The ratio to remember is 1 kilogram of vegetables for 250 g of salt. The salt will make the vegetables soak in their own juices. Using a large knife, roughly chop the ingredients. Put them in your blender with the salt. Blend until a sandy texture is achieved. Put the resulting paste in a jar, packing it down to avoid any pockets of air, and add a weight to keep it pressed down. Make sure that the paste does not touch the lid, as the salt would cause it to rust. Close hermetically and keep in the fridge.

By Jeanne Vallin-Fournier
Founder of Delicatessen Factory, she creates beautiful meals, provides catering services for events and runs cookery workshops.
delicatessenfactory.com