Potato Peel Broth

Today my friend Dave brought me some delicious chicken noodle soup. He made a roast chicken earlier in the week, and like a responsible cook remembered to boil the carcass to make chicken stock. It's probably more obvious to boil a carcass than it is to boil vegetable scraps, but the same idea lies behind both chicken stock and vegetable stock. Thus I introduce to you another Vegetarian Epicure recipe Potato peel broth or less appetizing, Garbage soup. This broth is a suitable base for any type of soup or sauce and doesn't have the fat that comes with chicken or beef stock.

The most difficult part of making this broth is remembering to keep your potato peels. Any time you make a potato dish, instead of peeling the potatoes with peeler use a pairing knife so you can remove strips a 1/4 inch thick. Either set them aside a few days if you plan on making another potato dish or make the broth immediately. The book notes, if you don't have all of the necessary vegetables to make the broth just boil the potato peels with salt and save it until you have the vegetables to make the broth.

Potato Peel Broth (from The Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas)

Ingredients:
Potato peels from 5-7
1 large onion, quartered
2 carrots, peeled and quartered
2 celery stalks
2 cloves garlic
salt and pepper
1 1/2 quarts of water
parsley (optional)

Make sure the potato peels have been washed. Put the water and vegetables into a large pot and simmer over a low flame for 1 1/2 hours until the vegetables are very soft. Add water as it evaporates to keep the vegetables covered. Once the vegetables are tender, there are two options. For a clear broth, strain off the vegetables and set aside for further use. For a soup with a creamier texture, the broth can be pureed and then pressed through a sieve to remove the coarser bits of potato peel. I usually opt for the clear broth because I think the pureed broth is too grainy.