— Mitch Miglis

Sometimes I completely veer off of exactly what that is to be able to make something more unique. And one of the kind of go-tos that I'll make more often as a custom stock is a mushroom stock, and that will typically be a mix of dried mushrooms. So, I might do it fresh every so often, but more often than not, I'm going to dry them. And I do some foraging and have a neighbor that is unfortunate enough to have-- He forages all the time and brings me mushrooms, and I will often dehydrate those. So I have a-pretty big stock of dehydrated mushrooms kind of all the time. If not, you can buy dehydrated mushrooms at most grocery stores. And you don't need to go with the crazy expensive ones. Don't get the morel mushrooms to be able to do this. But shiitakes are great for getting that nice umami. I probably wouldn't do chanterelles, but just do a variety of different dried mushrooms. And then I will basically take that with some onion, and/or the onion skins if I have some left over from the other stock as well, and basically do the same method. Let it boil, bring it down to a simmer for about 40 minutes, 45 minutes, and you get this nice, rich, deep mushroom stock. And you can actually keep simmering that down to be able to get it so it's an even bigger flavor out of that if you want to. Other custom stocks that I might do might be something like if you're doing a beet stock, which is very unique to borscht and those style of dishes. So that I would never use beets in any other kind of stock, but for borscht, it's kind of a necessity. So, that's something that would be kind of custom, but more often than not, the mushroom one is going to be the one that I would do as a kind of a custom stock. Sometimes I might do something that's really onion or leek forward, and I might do a potato kind of pairing or something with that as well. But more often than not, it's going to be the mushroom.