I originally learned to cook by going through the entire "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" (it took me 3 years). Later in life I was completely broke and had to give up either meat or beer. I chose to give up meat :-) Even later in life I figured I might as well go whole hog (hmm???) and become vegan. I learned how to cook again.
My biggest piece of advice for anyone wanting to learn how to cook really good vegetable based meals (and who doesn't want to adopt an already established ethnic vegan diet) is to forget ingredients and instead focus on techniques. Cooking is applied chemistry. You need to understand why certain foods and certain preparations give certain results. You can then replicate similar results.
It's not so much that you want to imitate the "meaty" flavour of beef bones, but rather that you want to create a similarly satisfying broth. If you try to imitate an existing food, you will always end up with a pale shadow of that food. Instead make something that has the same value, but with a different ingredient. It will be different just like chicken stock is different from beef stock which is different than lamb stock which is different than pork stock. But it will be just as good.
For stocks, it's complicated because vegetables are sweet. You want umami for stocks. As much as possible keep the sweetness out of the stock (because it will get in there no matter what you do). Fermented proteins (miso as others have said -- but make sure to get the oldest you can find), beans/lentils, rice, etc. Stay away from things like a mirepoix because it will add too much sweetness. You can add onions, but caramelise them down to being black, etc, etc. To be honest, there is too much to making a good stock to explain here. You just need to practice and adjust until you get what you are looking for. Learning an ethnic cuisine that is already traditionally vegan will help a lot if you pay attention to the techniques they are using. At the same time consider what a bone stock is doing in a stock pot. What is meat? What is connective tissue? What is skin? What is marrow? What happens when you simmer that for 5 hours?
You can make great vegan stocks and it is fun to learn how to do it, but it takes an inventive spirit.
My biggest piece of advice for anyone wanting to learn how to cook really good vegetable based meals (and who doesn't want to adopt an already established ethnic vegan diet) is to forget ingredients and instead focus on techniques. Cooking is applied chemistry. You need to understand why certain foods and certain preparations give certain results. You can then replicate similar results.
It's not so much that you want to imitate the "meaty" flavour of beef bones, but rather that you want to create a similarly satisfying broth. If you try to imitate an existing food, you will always end up with a pale shadow of that food. Instead make something that has the same value, but with a different ingredient. It will be different just like chicken stock is different from beef stock which is different than lamb stock which is different than pork stock. But it will be just as good.
For stocks, it's complicated because vegetables are sweet. You want umami for stocks. As much as possible keep the sweetness out of the stock (because it will get in there no matter what you do). Fermented proteins (miso as others have said -- but make sure to get the oldest you can find), beans/lentils, rice, etc. Stay away from things like a mirepoix because it will add too much sweetness. You can add onions, but caramelise them down to being black, etc, etc. To be honest, there is too much to making a good stock to explain here. You just need to practice and adjust until you get what you are looking for. Learning an ethnic cuisine that is already traditionally vegan will help a lot if you pay attention to the techniques they are using. At the same time consider what a bone stock is doing in a stock pot. What is meat? What is connective tissue? What is skin? What is marrow? What happens when you simmer that for 5 hours?
You can make great vegan stocks and it is fun to learn how to do it, but it takes an inventive spirit.