Homemade stock is easy to make, it just takes some time and some some space in your freezer to collect vegetable trimmings and leftover fish, seafood or chicken bones.
I always save the peels and trimmings of my veggies in the freezer, onion skins and all. I have a main container for general flavours: onion peels, celery, carrots, leeks, garlic peels, spring onions. Fennel I keep separately which I only use for fish stock, and I have a separate containers for Asian stocks: lemon grass peels, ginger skins, pandan leaves, spring onion trimmings.
Wandering around the wholesale store yesterday we came across shrimp peels, so just the shells. I couldn’t resist, that pretty much makes instant stock! I love it that this way nothing goes to waste!
Shrimp stock
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Loading...Ingredients
- Vegetable trimmings saved in the freezer, e.g:
- Carrot, fennel, celery, onion peels, garlic skins, spring onions, leeks
- If you don't have any of these leftovers in the freezer then add at least the following flavour makers:
- 1 -2 celery stalks, chopped
- 1/2 - 1 fennel bulb, chopped
- 2-3 carrots, chopped
- 1 onion, chopped
- 4-5 garlic cloves, crushed
- Fish flavours
- I used 500g of shrimp shells (they sold these already peeled at the shop), but any crustacean shells will do: prawn, crab, lobster.
Instructions
Sauté the trimmings of carrot, fennel, celery, onion peels, garlic skins, spring onions and leeks, you can throw it all in frozen.
I also added an extra chopped onion, a few garlic cloves and 5 carrots I still had in the fridge.
When fragrant and translucent add the shrimp peels (or fish bones or any other fish or seafood ingredients you’ve saved) and sauté for about 10 minutes until heated through and fragrant.
Add water until it just covers the ingredients (± 2 liters).
Bring to a boil and let simmer for about 45 minutes.
Let cool slightly and strain the soup, squeezing out as much juice as you can from the pulp.
You’re left with a super flavourful broth which you can use for so many dishes: soup, sauces, risotto, croquettes, etc.
Good to know, I don’t add any salt until I actually cook with it the next time around.
Notes
Even if your crustaceans have been cooked before there is still a lot of flavour in the shells, so remember to save a freeze them for when you want to make stock. The more the better, so just keep a separate sealable container in the freezer to which you can add the shells until you feel you have enough.
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