The First Step to Great Flavor
A versatile base of aromatic herbs and vegetables builds flavor in sauces, soups, and stews in every cuisine.
You’ve probably noticed that most recipes for sauces, soups, and stews begin by asking you to cook one or more vegetables and occasionally a little meat in a small amount of fat. These basic mixtures go by different names in different cuisines, but they always play an important part in the character of a dish. A French mirepoix, an Italian soffritto, or a Portuguese refogado will each provide a foundation of flavor that will ultimately distinguish a dish from a similar one in another cuisine. It’s helpful to know what goes into these basic mixtures and how and when to use them if you want to learn to improvise a sauce, soup, or stew without a recipe, or give a particular international twist to a simple dish.
Aromatic vegetables, herbs, and spices form classic flavor bases
In most European-influenced cuisines, classic flavor bases are made up of a mixture of three or four aromatic vegetables, sometimes herbs, and occasionally a small bit of meat. Asian cuisines often add freshly ground spices to their own combinations of aromatic vegetables and herbs.
Aromatic vegetables, which give off deep, well-rounded flavors and pleasing aromas when cooked, are the core of flavor bases. The classic French flavor base known as mirepoix (pronounced meer-pwah) is a combination of chopped onions, celery, and carrots made with twice as much onion as carrot and celery (see What size pieces should I cut?). The Italian soffritto (pronounced soh-FREE-toh) varies from region to region, and may be as simple as a chopped onion and a little garlic, or, like mirepoix, may be a mixture of vegetables that might include fennel. Italian cooks often like to use flavorful meats (especially pancetta or prosciutto) in the soffritto to give a hearty dish a deeper, richer flavor. A Catalan sofregit (soh-frah-ZHEET) starts with a slow sauté of onions in olive oil and is then enriched with tomatoes. A Spanish (or Castilian, to distinguish it from Catalan) sofrito, used to flavor classic rice dishes and rich braises, will usually include onions and garlic, and sometimes peppers, like its Portuguese equivalent, refogado (rah-foh-GAH-doh); tomatoes are often added.
