A Good Base

It’s that time of the year where soups, stews, and braises reign supreme. Slow and low heat gently coaxing flavors from a variety of ingredients, all readily found at your favorite farmers market. The best  way to begin is with a good base. 

No, I’m not talking about those little foil-wrapped cubes of salted goo that have probably been sitting in your cupboard since last winter. That’s the quickest way to ruin all the hard work your farmers have put into lovingly growing what you’re about to cook. Take a few extra steps and ingredients and I promise you’ll be happy you did. 

One of my first tasks in a commercial kitchen was to chop the vegetables for mirepoix—a mix of carrots, onions, and celery  that make up the foundation of sauces found in French cooking. As I pulled out the industrial food processor, the chef pushed it back on to the counter while handing me a huge (and very sharp) knife while explaining  the electric contraption I thought would make quick work of the job ahead of me would cut the vegetables into pieces far too small for mirepoix, thus making it Matignon. I was a geology student at UCSB, not a culinary student at CIA so it was all chopped veggies to me. 

Not only did the pieces of vegetables have to be a certain size, but there also had to be the correct ration of two parts onions, one part carrots, and one part celery. So I spent a lot of time working on my knife skills (aka: trying not to slice the tips off my fingers). 

While purists tend to stick with this trio, throughout the years I’ve learned there’s also assorted versions such as white mirepoix which does not use carrots or celery which leaches color into pale sauces. Instead, it consists of equal parts onion, celeriac, parsnip, and leek.

Do these ingredients sound familiar? They should because you can find all of them at the market at this time of the year.  The best part, they freeze well so you can dice up extra and store in the freezer for later instead of stooping to the jolly green giant in the frozen foods section when you want to whip up a batch of espagnole come summer when the cool season ingredients are out of season. 

With Mardi Gras only a few weeks away, there’s a similar base for Cajun and Creole foods known as the holy trinity which substitutes peppers for carrots since they were easier to grow in the southern regions where early French colonizers settled in the North America.  Red beans, dirty rice, gumbo, jambalaya, Étouffée all begin with the holy trinity. It’s a little different on the ratios, too, each ingredient being equal in parts. This is why I stock up on bell peppers when they’re in season, slicing them in half, removing the seeds, and freezing them. Peppers can be easily cut even while frozen. 

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the Latino version, sofrito. Like mirepoix, sofrito is made with sautéed diced garlic, vegetables, herbs, and spices. The Italians have their version, too, with fennel and parsley. For the Indian version, tadka, they add their native spices and ginger along with the vegetables.  Hopefully, you picked up some of that awesome fresh ginger and turmeric when it was at market. It can be frozen fresh, but I keep mine in a glass jar with a few tablespoons of neutral spirits, giving it a good shake to coat the rhizomes once in a while. 

I pass the sign each week that proclaims a world in one neighborhood, but I like to think of it as the world at the farmers market. It doesn’t matter your cultural background or culinary education, you can cook like a pro with great ingredients.