Brown Butter Consommé Pt.1 Brown Butter Stock

I have to admit that the title of this dish is slightly tongue-in-cheek. How much can a fat-free broth taste like brown butter? I maintain that the end result is highly flavorful, and aside from the fat soluble flavors that are not present, it wouldn't be too hard to convince someone it tastes like brown butter. Clarifying this stock is essential because the initial stock will be incredibly cloudy. All of the particles get in the way when tasting, but once clarified, the flavors shine through. This entry will be for the base stock, and then I will post on how I clarified it.
Recipe:
200g onion, large dice
130g butter
2g salt
2 points star anise (not 2 whole stars)
120g goat milk powder
100g milk
10g sugar
90g shallot, sliced
15g garlic, rough chop
8 sprigs thyme
3 bay leaves
4 black peppercorn
2500g water

Method:
Place the onions, star anise, salt, and 10g of butter in a small pot. Gently brown the onions over medium-low heat.
This takes a little while. Turn off the heat and set aside once the onions are uniformly just beyond golden brown. In a pot that can hold at least 3.5 liters of water, place the milk powder, milk, and the rest of the butter. Cook over medium heat stirring constantly. The mixture will dehydrate, break into fat and solids, and then start to brown. Cook until all of the milk solids are just beyond golden brown. Once this happens add the shallots, garlic, thyme, bay, pepper, sugar, water, and previously cooked onions. Bring everything to a boil and simmer for 1 hour. Strain through a chinoise and cool.


Now you have a fatty and cloudy vegetarian stock. Clarification coming soon. Sorry, no plate up because this isn't ready to serve yet.

Some notes:
Cooking the onions with star anise produces more brown-meaty flavors than if you just brown the onions with the butter. Here is what Heston has to say about it.
The first time I tried to make brown butter consommé the process was a little more time consuming. The idea came from the fact that the flavor of brown butter comes from the milk solids left in the butter from the cream. I decided to try cooking skim milk(a lot of milk solids and notfat) in butter until it dehydrated enough to coagulate the proteins and start to brown. This worked well, but it took a lot of time and milk. Buying already dehydrated milk solids saves time and produces the same results. I used goat milk because that was all I could find, but any dehydrated milk powder would work.

Utterly,
Adam