Monday, October 3, 2011

Mise en place - Mirepoix

No, I didn’t change my blog to French.  In fact these are two of the 12 French words I know.  lol!  But mirepoix is something I have been making ahead for the last several weeks and I wanted to give it a mention here.

This mixture of diced celery, carrots, and onions is the basic start of any soup and of many other recipes as well.  When cutting some mirepoix for the third time one week I decided that it would be added to my weekly mise en place.

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For best results include equal portions of the three ingredients and if you are working on soups I would consider adding some fresh parsley into the mix  (I have some in my garden that I added to two of the three recipes that called for Mirepoix this week).

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Store in your fridge for up to 10 days.

I do not have a food processor, or this process could be made much easier… but a good sharp chef’s knife treats me well and within minutes I had my own jar of mirepoix to add to my ‘grab and go menu makers’ in the fridge.

One recipe I made with it was basic chicken soup.  This is as simple as recipes come and it was made in about 10 minutes with basic ingredients that I keep on hand just for days such as the day I made this one (ie: days where you think “Seriously? Didn’t I just feed you???”)

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Simple 10 Minute Chicken Soup

1 quart of chicken broth (homemade or store bought, I have used both here)

2 cans chicken or 1/2 lb cooked, diced chicken meat (I have used both here as well)

2 cups mirepoix

1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped fine

1 - 2 teaspoons chicken base (bullion or reduced broth packets)

2 cups cooked small pasta noodles (optional)

Salt and pepper to taste

Put it in a pot, get it hot.  Cook until onions go clear. (If you used dry noodles cook until noodles are soft.)  Eat and enjoy! 

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2 comments

Kim said...

Fabulous idea! What are reduced broth packets?

Val in the Rose Garden said...

It's a Trader Joes thing... Here they are:

http://compare.ebay.com/like/350495917984?_lwgsi=y&ltyp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar

They are really wonderful but hard to get unless you have Trader Joes or a Whole Foods around you.

Blessings!

Val

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