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Vegetable Bouillon
1 cup chopped carrots 1 cup chopped turnips 1 cup chopped celery, outside stalks and leaves will do 1 cup chopped onions 2 cups strained tomatoes 1 cup broth from canned or fresh stewed asparagus 1/2 cup broth from canned or fresh boiled spinach 2 1/2 quarts water 1 teaspoon salt Mix all the ingredients, except the salt. Bring to a boil, and simmer slowly three or four hours. Turn through a strainer. There should be about one pint of broth. Season with the salt. One bay leaf may be cooked with the vegetables, if desired, and the broth may be seasoned with thyme or summer savory. A tablespoon of nut soup stock may be added or a teaspoon of vegex.
A long, slow extraction that reduces roughly three and a half quarts of liquid down to a pint of concentrated vegetable broth. The hinge is the reduction: leave the pot uncovered and salt only at the end, or the finished bouillon will be inedibly salty.
- Reduction, not just simmeringTo go from about 3 1/2 quarts of total liquid to one pint you need an uncovered pot and a steady, visible simmer for the full three to four hours. A lidded pot at a bare tremble will leave you with quarts of thin vegetable water instead of bouillon.
- Salt lastThe recipe's single teaspoon of salt is added after straining, once the volume is fixed. Salting at the start would concentrate sevenfold as the liquid falls.
- VegexA yeast-extract paste sold in the early twentieth century, similar in character to Marmite or Vegemite. Half a teaspoon of any modern yeast extract, or a teaspoon of a good vegetable bouillon paste, does the same job; add it at the end and taste, since these are very salty.
- Nut soup stockA savory liquid made from ground nuts or nut butter thinned with water, common in vegetarian cookery of the period. A tablespoon of unsweetened almond or cashew butter whisked into the strained broth gives the same soft body.
- Asparagus and spinach liquorThese are the cooking waters, not purees, and they supply most of the green depth. If you have no asparagus water, the liquid from canned or cooked green beans or peas is a fair substitute; spinach water can be replaced by simmering a large handful of spinach in the pot for the last half hour.
- Strained tomatoesTomatoes cooked and pushed through a sieve to remove skin and seed. Passata is the direct modern equivalent; canned crushed tomatoes will work if you are straining the whole batch anyway.
- Yield and useOne pint of strained, strongly flavored broth: two small cups as a first course, or a base to dilute for soups and sauces. Refrigerate and use within a few days, or freeze in ice-cube trays.
- HerbsThe optional bay leaf goes in from the start. Thyme or summer savory are better added in the last half hour, since three hours of boiling flattens them.
This belongs to the vegetarian cookery that grew up around American health reform kitchens in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, where meat stock was ruled out and cooks had to build savor from vegetables, tomato, and yeast extract instead. The two giveaways are the nut soup stock, a house preparation of nut butter thinned with water that stood in for the richness of bones, and Vegex, a commercial yeast-extract paste of the sort marketed for exactly this purpose. Bouillon in this period usually meant a clear, sippable broth taken from a cup rather than a soup eaten with a spoon, and it was frequently prescribed for invalids and light suppers, which explains both the extreme reduction and the careful thrift of using outside celery stalks and the water left from cooking spinach and asparagus.