Mirepoix

A mirepoix (/mɪərˈpwɑː/ meer-PWAH, French: [miʁ.pwa] ⓘ) is a mixture of diced vegetables cooked with fat (usually butter) for a long time on low heat without coloring or browning.

Mirepoix is a long-standing part of French cuisine and is the flavor base for a wide variety of dishes, including stocks, soups, stews, and sauces.

Although the cooking technique is probably older, the word mirepoix dates from the 18th century and derives, as do many other appellations in French cuisine,[3] from the aristocratic employer of the cook credited with establishing and stabilizing it: in this case,[4] Charles-Pierre-Gaston François de Lévis, duc de Lévis-Mirepoix (1699–1757), French field marshal and ambassador and a member of the noble family of Lévis, lords of Mirepoix in Languedoc (nowadays in the department of Ariège) since the 11th century.

[5][circular reference] According to Pierre Larousse (quoted in The Oxford Companion to Food), the Duke of Mirepoix was "an incompetent and mediocre individual ... who owed his vast fortune to the affection Louis XV felt toward his wife and who had but one claim to fame: he gave his name to a sauce made of all kinds of meat and a variety of seasonings".

Antoine Beauvilliers,[7] for instance, in 1814, gives a short recipe for a Sauce à la Mirepoix which is a buttery, wine-laced stock garnished with an aromatic mixture of carrots, onions, and a bouquet garni.

Joseph Favre, in his Dictionnaire universel de cuisine (c. 1895, reprinted 1978), uses the term to describe a mixture of ham, carrots, onions, and herbs used as an aromatic condiment when making sauces or braising meat.

[11] Mirepoix au maigre is sometimes called a brunoise[12] (although strictly speaking this term more accurately merely designates the technique of dicing with a knife).

Similar combinations, both in and out of the French culinary repertoire, may include leeks, parsnips, garlic, tomatoes, shallots, mushrooms, bell peppers, chilies, and ginger, according to the requirements of the regional cuisine or the instructions of the particular chef or recipe.

[citation needed] In Italian cuisine, onions, carrots and celery are chopped to form a battuto,[15] and then slowly cooked[16] in butter or olive oil, becoming soffritto.