At One Stone, we have lots of vegetarian guests. I never imagined myself as a “vegetarian chef.” When cooking for myself and the question is whether or not I should toss a pig’s foot into a pot of beans, the answer is always going to be “yes.” But I love the challenge of making vegetarian or vegan dishes as flavorful as possible. A secret weapon in this quest is a hearty vegetable stock with plenty of depth. The best way I’ve found to accomplish this is to use the oven.

I start by using a “Y” peeler to prep the vegetables. By cutting the veg in the slimmest strips possible, It increases the surface area and allows for greater browning. For vegetables that don’t lend themselves to this type of prep, I just cut them into the thinnest pieces I can manage with my chef’s knife.

I spread the veg onto parchment-lined sheet pans and roast them in the oven. A convection oven makes the work faster, but if your home oven doesn’t have an internal fan, you can achieve the same brownness, it just takes a bit longer. Once everything is nice and brown, transfer the veg to a deep hotel pan. If there’s a lot of brown bits on the parchment you can rinse the paper in the pan with some water to release the flavor and not throw away all that browned goodness.

Fill the hotel pan with boiling water to within one inch of the top and cover it tightly with foil. Cook the stock in the oven for about three hours, covered. Remove the foil and check it for flavor. If you want to make it more intense, remove the vegetable matter and pop it back in the oven uncovered for another hour. Once you’ve got the stock to the desired flavor and intensity you can add salt to taste. I prefer to leave the stock unsalted so that adding stock to a recipe doesn’t risk oversalting a dish.

If you want to make vegetarian demi-glace, you can continue reducing the stock in the oven and adding some agar-agar.

If you’re not worried about keeping it purely vegetarian, you can add some Worcestershire sauce to get an even deeper flavor.

Vegetable Stock

2 bunches celery

8 carrots

3 yellow onions

8 cloves garlic

2 yellow beets

4 leeks

4 bell peppers

Use a “Y” peeler to cut the celery and onions. Cut the remaining vegetables as thinly as possible. Don’t forget to wash the cut leeks or you’ll get grainy stock.

Spread the cut vegetables on a sheet pan and roast until well-browned. Transfer to a deep hotel pan and fill the pan with boiling water. Cover with foil and cook for three hours in a 350 degree oven. Remove the foil and continue cooking for one more hour.

Strain the vegetables and reserve the stock.