Make Your Own Stock To Get the Best Out Of Your Juicer Pulp

Growing up in the southern part of India, one of the things that fascinated me about a trip to my parents' village was being able to make my own 'plantain fibre rope'. We would pull strips off the soft bark of the plantain tree, rip them apart for the stringy fibre and use them to make remarkably strong ropes for our tug-of-war games. No part of the plantain tree, my grandmother told me then, was ever meant to go waste. You ate up the fruits, you stripped the stem for the core inside (the plantain pith/vaazhaithandu) and ate that up too, you ate up the flowers, you used the leaves in lieu of plates to dine and you used the fibre from the stems to make ropes or to string jasmine flowers to wear on your head. Truly a zero-waste tree.

Indeed, that is the way nature meant everything to be, to reduce waste as much as possible.  Which is why it seemed such a shame to have to throw away all that pulp that accumulated from my daily juicing. Though my Breville juicer is the best ever in the business and gives me almost dry pulp, it still can not extract every last drop of goodness. And the fact that the pulp was as vibrantly colorful as the juice itself, made it even more difficult to have to throw iaway, which is how it all ended up on the stove  to go into the making of  amazingly flavorful and nutrient-packed stocks which I substitute for water in many cooked dishes.

One day of my juicing gives me enough stock to fill up one 8' x 10' ziploc bag which I then store in my freezer compartment.  Most of the vegetable pulp can be used this way, while the fruit-based pulp can be used as is to bulk up puddings, cakes and most other bakes. Use your imagination and don't throw away all those precious nutrients.

How To Make Stock:

1) Take the pulp in a generous sized stock pot and fill almost till the brim with water. Add some salt, a bay leaf , a medium sized stick of cinnamon and a pinch of turmeric and bring to a boil. Turn down the flame and simmer for 20-30 minutes on low heat.

2)   Place a colander on a bowl and pour the pulp into this. Let sit for 10-15 minutes and then use a flat wooden spoon to gently pat down the pulp to extract all the liquid.

 

 

3) After all the liquid collects in the bowl, you have a stock that looks as colorful as this. I usually do a 'tasting' at this stage since I cannot resist the aroma.

4) Let cool for a few minutes, and store in ziploc bags in your freezer compartment. You now have the most amazing base for your soups.A good way to ensure the stock stays well for a longer time is to eliminate the air bubble that will collect as you pour into the bag. To do away with this, wait till all the liquid is frozen, then open the bag and squeeze out the air and reseal. You can also store the stock in separate plastic containers but my freezer compartment is quite small and I make a lot of these, so I stack up the bags like books inside the freezer.

These keep good for at least a month, but use them up whenever you can, to avoid overcrowding the freezer. 

Update: There was this excellent recipe for Moussaka using juicer pulp that I came across in the Reboot blog the other day. Seems simple enough and promises to taste as delicious as the pictures suggest. Planning to try this out soon. Watch this space for more on this.