This Is Not A Parody: An NPR Story About Homemade Vegetable Broth
To say I was not excited about this assignment would be an understatement. An NPR piece about vegetable broth? It seems like a parody — like an NPR piece about Birkenstocks or lattes or, um, knitting. But then Bren Herrera threw open the door to her house in suburban Virginia, and suddenly a radio story seemed possible.
To say Herrera has a big personality is not an understatement either. The Cuban-born personal chef swept me into the crowded kitchen of the comfy ranch-style home where she grew up, fully prepared to explain how to distill the abundance of late summer vegetables filling our markets and backyards into one steaming bowl of the season.
"I'm going to convince you to make stock for yourself," she announced. Her ingredients were already prepped and set out in a bright orange cast-iron pot. Onion, green and red pepper, chayote — oh, just look at her recipe below.
She started by browning everything up with an entire head of unpeeled garlic, then she added a couple quarts of water and left it to simmer. Once it was done, she strained the precious liquid through a colander. And then, unexpectedly, Herrera threw the used, cooked vegetables into a blender and mixed that puree into the stock.
"Normally, somebody would tell you ... to just chuck these because you're done with them, right? You've got what you need out them," she said of the mushy veggies. "But no, no, no. Not in my kitchen. We're going to use all of that."
After the Cuban Revolution, Herrera's parents lived on the ration system known as Libreta de Abastecimiento.
"And so they had to be very conservative with how they used food," Herrera explained. "They had the Libreta and so they only got a certain amount of vegetables per month, if that."
I conceded that Herrera's stock, which wastes nothing, was uncommonly delicious. But it still seemed like way more work than just buying a container off the shelf in a grocery store.
"Yeah, but guess what?" she retorted good-naturedly. "This is yours. It's craft."
A stock that can be tailored to whatever's freshest, cheapest and most available. I used what we made as the basis for this tomato and corn risotto (adjusting the risotto seasoning away from basil and towards parsley, so as not to clash with the stock's Cuban flavors). Herrera suggests freezing it, to make your vegetable soup sing of summer in the cold fall months ahead.
Repurposed, No Waste Vegetable Stock
Ingredients
7 stalks celery, with leaves
4 whole tomatoes on vine, halved
4 medium carrots, big chunks
1 green pepper, big chunks
1 red bell pepper, big chunks
1 yellow onion, quartered
6 cloves garlic
1 chayote, skin on
2 large oregano leaves (Herrera uses a variety she grows called witch oregano)
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon black peppercorn
1 bunch cilantro
1 packet of Sazón Goya
Sea salt to taste
5 cups water
Method
In large, cast-iron pot, heat 1/8 cup olive or canola oil. Add all vegetables. Cook vegetables for approximately 5 to 7 minutes. Add 4 cups cold water and stir. Add dry herbs, spices and cilantro. Stir well and cover pot. Lower heat and simmer for 90 minutes.
Drain stock through colander and reserve cooked vegetables for later use. Use stock right away or store in freezer.
Chef's notes: For more flavor, add cooked vegetables from original stock and pulse until well-blended. This will add more depth and great flavor to soups, chilis, etc.
Vegetable Stock Purée
Ingredients
3 cups vegetable stock (preferably scratch-made)
6 stalks celery, with leaves
4 medium carrots, big chunks
2 whole tomatoes on vine, halved
1 green pepper, seeded
1 chayote, peeled and cubed
1 yellow onion, quartered
6 cloves garlic
sea salt to taste or Sazón Goya
Method
In high power food processor, add raw celery, carrots, tomato, 1 cup vegetable stock and dry seasonings. Process on high for one minute until carrots are fully broken down. Room permitting, add more vegetables and liquid and process again for an additional minute. Transfer to mixing bowl. Add remaining ingredients, adding stock as necessary until all vegetables are fully liquefied. Add first batch of mixture with second batch and process again until all is well-blended. Depending on the size and power of your processor, you may have to do this in two or four steps.
*Chef's notes: For a thinner purée with even more flavor, add 1 cup of cooked vegetables from the original stock and pulse until well-blended.
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Transcript
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Markets are bursting with tomatoes, peppers, squash, and other late summer vegetables, prime stuff for everything from salad to sauces and vegetable stock. Somebody - somebody asked NPR's Neda Ulaby to make some vegetable stock. Neda, take it away.
NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: So when I got this assignment, I was like, really. I have to do a piece about vegetables?
BREN HERRERA: Vegetable stock, how boring, right?
ULABY: Yes, vegetable stock. But I'm at the home kitchen of Bren Herrera, a personal chef determined to make vegetable stock not boring. To start, she puts on the old-school Cuban music she uses to create atmosphere in the kitchen.
HERRERA: There is soul here, girlfriend. There is a lot of soul in this cocina.
ULABY: Whatever, vegetable stock is still needless work. You can just buy it by the carton at the store.
HERRERA: I'm going to convince you to make stock for yourself.
ULABY: OK.
HERRERA: Yeah.
ULABY: All right.
HERRERA: No more canned, no more bottled. So are you ready to make this?
ULABY: Let's do it.
HERRERA: Let's do it.
ULABY: OK.
Truth, I've made vegetable stock before, the predictable kind with the potatoes, carrots, parsley, mushrooms. Herrera has a different set of ingredients in a bright orange cast iron pot.
HERRERA: So we've got some yellow and white Spanish onion, some green pepper, some tomato on the vine that I took off.
ULABY: Green pepper in stock?
HERRERA: Yeah, green pepper in stock. It's just a little sweet. You find it in a lot of Latin and Cuban food - in our sofrito. Our sofrito is our flavor base, which is onion, green pepper, sometimes red pepper, cumin...
ULABY: So for this Cuban-flavored stock, green and red peppers, cilantro, cumin, a lumpy green squash called a chayote and a spice packet made by the Latino food company you can find it any big supermarket. It's called Sazon Goya.
HERRERA: I use Sazon Goya. This is like my little secret, and I bet you, you ask any Hispanic person, you know, if they use Sazon Goya, and they'll be like, yes.
ULABY: Next, browning up everything with an entire head of unpeeled garlic.
HERRERA: Because I love garlic, and it just makes everything better.
ULABY: Add a couple quarts of water, simmer for an hour. Then strain the precious liquid through a colander. And the used up mushy vegetables?
HERRERA: Normally, somebody would tell you, or you would even think to just chuck these because you're done with them, right?
ULABY: Right.
HERRERA: You've got what you need out of them - but no, no, no, not in my kitchen. We're going to use all of that.
ULABY: Herrera's parents lived in Cuba during the revolution. They lived on the rations called libreta.
HERRERA: And so they had to be very conservative with how they used food. They had the libreta, and so they only got a certain amount of vegetables per month, if that - a certain amount of milk, a certain amount of meat.
ULABY: Growing up in a home careful about not wasting food, this is how Herrera imagines throwing away even a pile of soggy vegetables.
HERRERA: It's sacrilegious. It would - yeah, I have no words if I saw somebody take this and throw it away.
ULABY: Instead, she says throw them in the blender, and add them to the broth for texture.
HERRERA: OK, so here we go again.
(SOUNDBITE OF BLENDER RUNNING)
HERRERA: I've wasted nothing. And you have a super robust stock.
ULABY: OK, I'm going to concede that this is a very sexy vegetable broth.
HERRERA: Isn't it beautiful? I like that.
ULABY: But it still seems like a lot more work than going to the grocery store and buying a container off the shelf.
HERRERA: Yeah, but guess what? This is yours. It's craft.
ULABY: It's stock, says Herrera, that can be a painting of the season in a bowl. Use it, she says, to add depth and heart to gazpacho, vegetarian chili, ratatouille, or freeze it to make a vegetable soup sing with summer memories on a cold, fall day. Neda Ulaby, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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