The Magic of Mirepoix Cuisine

The Italians call it Soffritto, the French Mirepoix and in North American you may have heard them refer to it as The Holy Trinity.  A combination of a few simple vegetables and herbs sauteed and added to a variety of dishes, soups, pastas, stuffed in tomatoes or peppers, sauces, and stews to bring the flavours of all these dishes, "up."  Here are a few combos to get you started:

Italy's Soffritto: (as in Frances Mayes cookbook, The Tuscan Sun Cookbook):  1/4 cup of extra-virgin olive oil, 1 yellow onion, minced, 1 carrot, minced, 1 celery stalk, minced, 1 handful of flat-leaf parsley, minced, 1/2 tsp. of salt, and 1/4 tsp. of pepper.

Saute the ingredients in a small saucepan over medium-low heat until they begin to colour and turn tender, 5-7 minutes.

France's Mirepoix:  1 cup of chopped onion, 1/2 cup of diced carrot, 1/2 cup of diced celery (use the Tuscan cookbook method of cooking).

Portugal's Refogado:  1 cup of chopped onions, 1/2  head of minced garlic, 8 chopped tomatoes or 1 28 ounce of diced canned tomatoes.  Add onions, then 10 minutes later, garlic, then 10 minutes later, tomatoes.

Cajun's Holy Trinity:  Equal parts of onions bell peppers and celery sauteed together in olive oil.  A variant of the Holy Trinity is garlic, parsley and shallots.

Do some experimenting this week.  I found it was amazing in my BBQed Chicken Soup Recipe (Soffritto method).