At The Culinary Vegetable Institute at The Chef’s Garden, trying to find ways to eliminate food waste is a way of life. Products from the farm that are not quite perfect are transformed and given new life through vinegars, pickles, syrups, misos, and countless other products.
One of the most interesting ways food waste is converted into a new and beautiful product is through a stock added to the dishes served during events at the CVI. The stock is ever-changing depending upon what is added to it, and for the CVI team, it’s a constant bubbling reminder that food waste does not mean the end of the line for a vegetable.
The stock may have started as a chicken stock, a vegetable stock, or even a beef stock. But, as the initial stock lowered, we still had to find something to do with vegetable scraps. Sometimes, they had animal scraps that needed a home. Instead of creating new stocks for new items, we simply add them to the existing stock.
The stock is never completely thrown out and is instead transformed into something altogether new and wonderful. Unless we run out, it does not get thrown out. It is similar to solera, a process similar to aging types of wines and beers. Once we usually get down to two or three quarts of stock, we “begin” again by adding any animal scraps or vegetable scraps that we may have. However, if we taste the stock and it needs more carrots, we add carrots; if it needs garlic, we add garlic. It’s a revolving stock, always being added to.
To avoid food safety concerns, the stock is carefully tended to to ensure it hits the required temperatures. We bring the stock up to a low simmer around the edges, or roughly 200 degrees. We let the stock simmer for quite a while at this temperature, and then we drop it down and usually let it go overnight, not letting the stock dip below 185F.
It’s hard to say when the first batch of stock began since it’s like a sourdough mother in that it’s always changing but never quite disappearing. Its old incarnations of amazing flavor live on in the next batch of stock indefinitely. The first batch may have started as a different singular stock, and then it was built upon that.
The stock is used for myriad dishes, including flavoring sauces and soups, cooking rice, and poaching vegetables. We call it Farm Stock, and justifiably so.