Building Foundations

The magic of mirepoix and her cooking cousins

Cooking is alot like building a house.

You need a strong foundation.

Basic techniques that act as a starting point. Combining ingredients and tastes to balance things out is like designing your layout and finally it’s the little adjustments and additions that make it unique.

One of those important flavour foundations is using aromatics.

Toss a few ingredients into a pan and you’ve instantly got a flavourful base which is an essential starting point for making something delicious.

Here’s the great part - all you need to do is a little chopping of a few simple ingredients and add to a pan or pot. And sometimes you don’t even need to chop!

You’ve probably heard of one of the most common aromatics, mirepoix, which is onions, carrots, celery diced and sautéed in butter until they’re nice and soft. My favourite part is that magical aroma that you get when the ingredients hit the pan. It always makes everything better.

And here’s the fun part. Make a slight change and you have something similar, just with a different name. Cooking cousins I like to call them.

Soffritto is the Italian version, the only difference is switching the butter for olive oil and maybe cutting the vegetables a little finer depending on what you’re using it for.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Switch out the carrots for bell pepper and you’ve a holy trinity to use in cajun or creole cuisine (think gumbo or jambalaya).

Add tomatoes and garlic, you’ve got the Latin American and/or Spanish sofrito which is common in paella or so many rice and bean dishes.

How about Asian? It’s garlic, scallions and ginger.

Or Indian? Onions, garlic and chilies in ghee.

This is one I learned while researching that I’ll definitely be playing around with; Suppengrun which is a German version using carrots, celeriac and leeks.

Isn’t if fun that every cuisine has their own version of a foundational flavour base? Can you see how one technique can then be used to cross over into so many different flavours and cultures?

The whole point of aromatics is to give you that head start on flavour. And when you start with a good base you’re already on a roll to build from there.

There’s so many ways you can go with these depending on what you’re cooking. Chop them larger for chunky sauces, as a flavour base for braising or alongside your roast chicken to use later for making a pan sauce. Make them into bite sized pieces for a stew or in a pot pie. Mince them really fine so when you cook them they turn into almost a paste which is great for sauces where you want all the flavour but a smoother texture (lasagna is a great example). Use in larger pieces for any kind of homemade stock. Of course you can add herbs. Or different spices. The list goes on….

So what are the keys to a good flavour foundation? I’m glad you asked….

Medium/low heat - you want to sweat the vegetables not brown them. Low is better so be patient here.

Season and adjust as you go. General rule for everything but it’s easy to forget and just skip it but this is your opportunity to get off on the right foot to making the end result the most delicious you can (the whole goal, right?). The salt also helps the vegetables release their liquid so they soften faster.

Give yourself a head start. This is something you can do as a mis en place at the beginning of the week. Spend some time chopping the veg to have ready to go for later or go ahead and cook a big batch on Sunday and keep it in the fridge to grab and go for meals throughout the week.

Which one are you going to play with first?

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