As fall approaches, thoughts turn to warmer foods and more comfort foods. In my cooking, many of these are flavored with mirepoix. Many chefs consider mirepoix to be the key ingredient for adding that extra umph to a dish. It’s the secret sauce; the essential ingredient; the reason your food tastes so good. Mirepoix plays an important role in flavoring soups, stews, casseroles, braised meats, and marinades.
What Is Mirepoix?
Mirepoix (pronunciation: meer-PWAH) is the aromatic flavor base made by lightly cooking onions, celery, and carrots. The vegetables are cooked slowly in butter or oil in order to coax out the flavors without browning or caramelizing them. Mirepoix is traditionally used as a flavoring ingredient, which means the vegetables are typically strained out or removed from the final dish before the end of the cooking process.
The word mirepoix comes from the last name of a French aristocrat, the Duke Charles-Pierre-Gaston François de Lévis, duc de Lévis-Mirepoix, whose cook is credited with establishing this mix of ingredients as a staple in French cooking in the eighteenth century.
Mirepoix is the classic French combination of aromatic vegetables, but other cuisines around the world have their own variations. Here are other aromatic bases you might encounter.
1. Cajun Holy Trinity: An aromatic base used in the American South, the holy trinity consists of onion, green bell pepper, and celery in the following ratio: two parts onion, one part green bell pepper, and one part celery.
2. Italian Soffritto: This variation on mirepoix uses minced rather than diced vegetables, and is typically cooked in olive oil (not butter) until the vegetables are soft and brown.
3. Spanish Sofrito: A basic Spanish red sauce that combines tomatoes, onions, garlic, and other vegetables (like bell peppers or herbs, for example).
4. French Pinçage: French pinçage (pronounced pin-sahge) is mirepoix with tomato paste added. It’s a great option for adding mirepoix to sauces.
5. German Suppengrün: Suppengrün means “soup greens” in German, and includes carrots, leeks, and celery root (celeriac). It can also include herbs like parsley or thyme, as well as other root veggies like onions and rutabaga.
6. Chinese: garlic + scallions + ginger with cooking oil
7. Indian: onion + garlic + chilies + ginger with ghee
8. Polish Włoszczyzna: the translation of which is fantastic: "Italian stuff"—is another variety of soup vegetables with a similar lineup to the suppengrün. Even heartier than the others, a włoszczyzna is likely to focus on cabbage as a primary ingredient.
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