Mirepoix

The culinary term Mirepoix refers to a vegetable cut made of a mixture of roughly chopped onions, carrots, and celery used to flavor stocks and soups. Ham or bacon can also be added, depending on the kind of preparation. Normally onion, celery, and carrot are used and these are slowly cooked in butter until they are very tender. Thyme and bay are often added. Mirepoix is a vegetable flavoring used in making stock.​

1. The vegetables should be trimmed and cut into a size that will allow for good flavouring extraction.
2. Fish fumet and Court Bouillons should have Mirepoix that has been cut small.
3. Stocks that will simmer for over 2 hours may use a large-cut Mirepoix. A combination of chopped aromatic vegetables, customarily onion, carrot, and celery, a Mirepoix is used to flavour stocks, soups, braises, and stews.
4. The basic ratio of ingredients is two parts onion, one part carrot, and one part of celery, by weight. Because Mirepoix is not usually eaten, the vegetables, except the onions, do not have to be peeled but must be washed.
5. The size of the cut will depend on how the Mirepoix is to be used.

History of Mirepoix

Mirepoix derives its name, as many other elements of French cuisine do, from the patron of the chef who established it, in this case, one of the houses of Lévis, seigneurs of Mirepoix since the eleventh century, a famous name in Languedoc. The particular member of the house of Lévis, whose chef is credited by the Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française with giving a name to an old technique, is Charles-Pierre-Gaston François de Lévis, Duc de Lévis-Mirepoix (1699-1757), Maréchal de France and Ambassador of Louis XV.