Tip of the week: Make large batches of mirepoix or soffritto and freeze them in muffin tins to save time in the kitchen and build flavor in your dishes.
Mirepoix is the French word for an aromatic blend of two-parts onion, and one part each of celery and carrots (a 2:1:1 ratio). This is used to build a base of flavors in soups, stews, meatloaves, ragus, and sauces. The vegetables may be cut chunky for soups and stews, or very finely for sauces. The Italian word for this vegetable blend is soffritto, which translates as, “sauteed.” In fact, when an Italian dish calls for soffritto, it is usually sauteed first before using. Another difference is that the Italian version is often finely minced to add flavor and more-or-less disappears and melts into whatever you’re making. Using a food processor, if you have one, you can do this in no time, lickety split!
Not to bring confusion to the table, but maybe you’ve heard a different name for this vegetable mix if you live in the southern USA, called a “Holy Trinity.” However, in this case, the carrot is swapped out for green bell pepper.
Here’s how: Chopping, dicing, and mincing are easy, but can be time-consuming. Instead of starting from scratch each time you cook, you could dedicate a small block of time and create a large batch of mirepoix or soffritto, with just a little olive oil drizzled in and mixed well. Next, freeze this mixture in muffin tins packed down with a spoon. Once frozen solid (overnight is great), set them out at room temperature for 10 minutes for easy removal with a butter knife or an off-set spatula. Finally, transfer the mirepoix pucks or soffritto frisbees into a freezer bags. Then, whatever your cooking needs, you’ll have this aromatic base at the ready.
Arliano Update (Aggiornamento Arliano):
Renovations on our rental house will begin this July and last through December, because… we’ve selected a new contractor, one who is actually willing to sign a contract. Hooray! We’ve missed out on this rental season (boo!), but we should have a beautiful, classic Tuscan-style, 2-bedroom house ready for summer rentals next year (yay!).
We finally had the remaining awful and ever-spreading bamboo dug up and deeply buried. What a relief — we’re glad to have that behind us! Old, giant piles of bamboo roots were sitting there so long they started regrowing themselves and were covered with weeds. The most surprising thing about the job was that the backhoe operator hit water at only 1.5 meters deep. We’ve had a lot of rain over the winter and into early spring, but we didn’t expect the water table to be so high. I wonder what a geologist and engineer will have to say about the ground water level if we ever decide to put in a pool someday.
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Greg Nelson Cooks 