stock - The Bridge Cottage

Fermented Vegetable Stock Pot.

As I sit down to write about making my own fermented vegetable stock, a weak winter sun peers through the pines opposite. It doesn’t even clear the tops in these long dark days, and in this Northumbrian frost pocket, warming food is called for. Tim’s just come in from the garden rubbing his hands that have gone white with cold on the ends. He’s been pruning the apple trees. ‘Soup’s ready, I say’.

It’s a lentil soup today, make with a tablespoon of fermented vegetable stock, leeks, carrots, celery and red lentils. I wrote last week about the basics of soup making in Seasonal Eating with Warming Winter Soups, with a recipe for Parsnip and Chestnut Soup, but as promised then, today I’m going to talk about the stock.

Fermented Vegetable Stock Pot

If you open the fridge, you’ll find a jar I call the ‘fizzing stock pot’. It’s a jar of fermented vegetables blitzed to a fine paste that has been allowed to ferment with the addition of salt water.

The ancients used fermentation as a way of preserving food and drink before fridges came on the scene. Here’s the science: there is controlled microbial growth and enzyme action in fermented foods that simply put, change some of the food’s parts into others. Microorganisms, bacteria, yeast or fungi convert organic substances like sugars and starch into alcohol or acids which act as natural preservatives as well as enhance the taste and texture.

Fermented foods have a distinctive strong, salty, slightly sour taste. If you watched the Hairy Bikes ‘Go Local In Northumberland’ last night, you’ll have seen them visit Belle and Herbs Fermentary in Wallsend and talk about fermented foods and their kimchi in particular. We are lucky to have both Bell and Herbs and Meraki Cacao from last night’s programme come to Hexham Farmer’s Market.

Health Benefits of Fermented Food

Fermentation gives us probiotics from bacteria which can restore the balance of bacteria in your gut, supporting digestive health.
Fermented food is easy to digest as some of the natural sugars and starches are already broken down.
The vitamins and minerals produced by fermented food are easier to absorb,
Understanding of the link between gut health and mood and behaviour is an evolving science. It is believed that some of the strains of probiotic bacteria found in fermented foods can help with anxiety and depression, and may produce cortisol, minimising the physical symptoms of stress.
Fermented foods can reduce blood pressure and address cholesterol balance, improving heart health.

That’s quite enough explanation of fermented foods for one week. Back to our stock pot!

Fermented Vegetable Stock Pot

Fermented Vegetable Stock Pot

Packaging and transportation besides, most commercially produced vegetable stock contains additives that I don’t want in my food. Once you start making your own fermented veg stock, you’ll soon realise how much the taste not to mention the health benefits of your soup is enhanced by it. And it’s easy to make! You’ll need a jar with an airtight lid.

Ingredients for Fermented Vegetable Stock Pot

Ingredients

I don’t want to be too prescriptive here – use what you have in! Experiment and don’t be too exact!

In this latest batch of stock, we used:

Onions – a medium-sized brown and small red

3 sticks celery

2 carrots

A slice of celeriac

½ small parsnip (we find the taste of parsnip can be overpowering is too much is used)

Couple cloves garlic

A few leaves each of parsley, thyme, sage, rosemary

A pinch of pink peppercorns and a couple of black,

½ tsp each of coriander, fennel and cumin seeds

Sea salt.

2 large or 3-4 small bay leaves

Chopped vegetables for Fermented Vegetable Stock Pot

Method

Roughly chop all the veg and blitz in a food processor with the green herbs.

Pestle and Mortar for grinding spices for Fermented Vegetable Stock Pot

Dry fry the spices and seeds in a small pan over low heat then grind with a pestle and mortar, coffee grinder or whatever you have to hand. A lump hammer might have to suffice!

Mix into the veggies.

Weigh the mixture and calculate what 4% of this is – ie if you have 100g, then you will need 4g of salt. Add 4% of the weight in salt and mix well. Pack into the jar until the paste comes about half an inch or 1cm from the top. Cover with bay leaves.

Fermented Vegetable Stock Pot

Press down on the bay leaves to get a briny liquid from the sea salt and veggies. If this doesn’t appear, make a bit of brine yourself – 2g sea salt and 50ml water should do the trick.

Pop the lid on and stand on a small plate or saucer.

We now pop it in our airing cupboard. It needs to be somewhere warm but not hot: ‘room temperature’ but here at Bridge Cottage most rooms are Baltic by day!

Leave it now for a few days. You can leave it for over a week. Once it starts fizzing, you may want to ‘burp’ it from time to time to release any built-up gas. (Nowt worse than trapped wind).

The longer you leave it, the stronger the flavour. Once you are happy with the taste, pop it in the fridge to stop it from fermenting further.

As a rough guestimate, (followers of the Bridge Cottage Way know I’m not one for exact measurements) use about a tablespoon of fermented stock in a pan of soup or stew.

As I type, I’m sipping on a glass of homemade kombucha, another fermented favourite here at Bridge Cottage, so while we’re talking fermented foods, I’ll make that the next post. Look out on social media for that coming up next week.

Fermented hot chilli sauce

Other posts on fermented food:
Make Your Own Fermented Hot Chilli Sauce

Homemade Yoghurt and Soft Cheese

Thank you so much for reading, and happy fermenting.

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I have been thinking over the past week and chatting with followers on The Bridge Cottage Way’s social media pages about our favourite warming winter soup and wondering which recipe to share with you. However, I wonder if we could think first about the basics of soup making to give you the confidence to experiment with what is to hand? I hardly ever use a recipe but look at what is in season in my local market, what vegetables are locally produced, what ingredients are lying lonely in the fridge and need finishing up or have been reduced in the shops and can be put to good use.

Looking at Leeks: Growing and Eating

The Bridge Cottage Way is all about reducing the drain on our planet’s precious resources, so we want to encourage folk to eat with the seasons, to eat food that has been locally produced where possible and not grown under plastic thousands of miles away, shipped over here by boat or plane and wrapped in single-use plastic. We talk about this a lot, and instead of thinking of it as a limiting practice, try reframing it to bring seasonal delight and variety to your diet.

It is midwinter here in the UK, and the only crops we have in the veg plot to use are leeks, kale and if the shrews have left us any, some Jerusalem artichokes (though beware of the latter – my mother-in-law calls it arty farty soup for good reason. The wind can be crippling!). In the local market, there are leeks, cauliflowers, carrots and parsnips: all perfect for winter soup.

The Basics of Soup Making.

Clean, chop and sweat vegetables.

Place a small amount of olive oil or a knob of butter in the base of a heavy pan on very low heat then add chopped vegetables. Place the lid on and sweat for five to ten minutes. This draws out the flavour.

Add stock.

We keep a jar of homemade fermented vegetable stock in the fridge. Or you could make a batch of vegetable stock and freeze in ready-to-use portions. You could try this vegetable stock recipe from our friends at River Cottage: River Cottage Vegetable Stock. (I see I need to add stock-making to the list of posts to write this year.) Or use a stock cube or spoon of Bouillon powder. Add enough stock to cover the vegetables and bring to a boil. You can always add more hot water if needed.

Meat eaters may also have stock in the freezer from boiling a chicken carcass or keeping the stock from boiling ham or cooking up lamb bones with water.

Cook & Blitz

Cook your vegetables until soft – meaning a sharp knife point will go in easily, then blitz with a hand blender if you like smooth soups. To blitz or not to blitz, that is the question and a bone of contention in this house. Tim likes chunky soups and I like smooth. Or you may not own a hand blender ( a potato masher will break up big chunks). When the kids were small all soup had to be blended within an inch of its life or our daughter would not touch it. The grandkids are just the same. It’s also a cheeky way of getting veg into them unawares. Though to this day, our daughter can sniff out a pepper at a mile.

So that’s the basics, now I will give you a recipe. Doing a shop in a local supermarket, I saw chestnuts had been reduced post-Christmas, so grabbed a few packs to put in the store cupboard. They marry so well with parsnips in soup, or with leeks in risotto.

Warming Winter Soup. Parsnip and Chestnut.

Parsnip and Chestnut Soup.

1 kg parsnips

Knob of butter or 1tbsp veg or olive oil

180g bag whole chestnuts, rough chopped

1 pint veg or chicken stock

1 pint milk – oat or dairy.

Peel and chop parsnips then sweat in a tablespoon of oil or knob of butter with a lid on for five mins. Add stock and cook for fifteen minutes. Add chestnuts and continue to cook until the parsnips are soft.

Add milk and bring back to simmer.

Blitz and serve!

An alternative to chestnuts might be ginger – parsnip and ginger is another winning combination and most definitely warming for these cold January days. OR maybe bung in some carrots? There really are no rules. Meat eaters might like to start with finely chopped streaky bacon at the beginning, reserving some for croutons on the top as I have done in this photo.

I’m off to the fridge now where I know there is a sad-looking cauliflower and some Stilton left over from Christmas. I may add a leek and a few chopped potatoes for body too. Go experiment with your soup-making, but please, keep it seasonal, and do let us know how you get on!

Sue and Tim from The Bridge Cottage Way

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or on our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the mailing list by this link:

Newsletter sign-up form link.

You can use the link above or the form below to ask us to sign you up for the newsletter, or just a message or comment on this post. We’d love to hear from you!

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