The best broth you will ever make: fennel broth (for free!)

I had pile of leek greens and fennel stalks and fronds I really didn’t know what to do with.

I saved the scraps in the freezer and to be honest I did think they would sit there for a year and freezer burn before I got around to making a vegetable stock. I find that most vegetable broths do not have enough *essence* to stand alone as its own soup. Usually they are ok for adding to risottos or flavouring a pot of beans or stew.
That is exactly where I thought this fennel broth would end up- I had a bit of the fennel broth in a measuring cup ready to go into a white bean stew when my neighbour dropped by. Simmering the broth made the house incredibly aromatic so she came into the kitchen right away to see what I was up too. “What is that?” she said. “fennel broth, try it”. She did. I think she said “oh my goodness”. or “that’s incredible”. or maybe it was ‘Mmmm’. Something along the lines of: This is the best broth you will ever make.

Here is the recipe, exactly as I made it:

The Boxed Stock

This week your CSA box contains: Spinach, baby chard, carrots, blueberries, snap peas, salad mix, savory

Recipe #1: borrowed from previous posts (20 cups of chicken stock under $5, and tortellini soup)

We didn’t have chicken this week so I used the boxed stuff. Not quite the same and very salty but I’ve got a Julia Child’s Kitchen Secrets Cookbook and she suggests simmering the boxed stock with onion, carrots and herbs for around 10 minutes to give it some flavour. I also read on another recipe site long ago suggesting to add a cup of water for each litre of boxed stock which seems to reduce the salty “i bought boxed stock” essence to the meal. 

I noticed that the soup stores are selling their “real” stock for around $5 for about 4 Cups. (again, please see my post on 20 cups of chicken stock for $5).
For tonights soup- I simmered the stock ala Julia Child’s recommendation. 

Sauteed some shallots and added the strained stock.

Meanwhile- heat a pot of water for the tortellini ( I used the $2 dried ones, little fresh ones would be good too).

when the water is boiling for the tortellini, throw the peas in the stock. 

Taste your tortellinis- when they are almost done (al dente with about 2 minutes left to your liking…) add the spinach to the stock. I chopped the spinach because it was quite big into about the size of baby spinach (3 inches or so..). Keep most of the stem on, they add a really great texture to the soup.

Once your tortellinis are done, drain them and put a heaping ladleful into each serving bowl. Add some spinach from the stock pot, and pour on the broth to your liking. Add some pepper & a bit parmesan ( I got fancy and used the peeler to make parmesan curls)

Serve!

I thought about adding some lemon juice to the broth, didn’t this time but let me know if anyone has tried that. I seem to stumble across lemon broth soup recipes but haven’t tried it yet. I think it might add a bit of the sour to the “Salty, Sour, Sweet, Bitter” taste.