No. 419

Mirepoix Stock and Dry Mirepoix

Fond de Mirepoix et Mirepoix Seche

This is the essence of meats and vegetables. Put into a saucepan half a pound of chopped fat pork, fry it until melted, and then add half a pound of butter, one pound of lean veal cut in three-eighths of an inch squares, and one pound of unsmoked ham, also a pound of carrots and six ounces of onions cut in quarter inch squares, and a bunch of parsley garnished with a bay leaf and as much thyme, some basil, a clove of garlic, two cloves, and mace. Add to this a few mushroom parings, season with a little salt and mignonette, and when all the ingredients are well fried and of a fine golden color, moisten them with three quarts of remoistening (No. 189), and one pint of white wine, and a pint of Madeira wine; boil the whole slowly for two hours, then strain it forcibly through a tammy (No. 159) without removing the fat. Mirepoix is used for moistening meats, fishes, etc.

Dry Mirepoix is made of minced, raw vegetables, and roots which are fried in lard and moistened with some good stock and white wine, and allowed to reduce to dryness. It is employed to cover the breasts of fowl, game, and also meats that are to be roasted on the spit.

← No. 418 Braise Stock for Braising Meats Stocks, Essences & Auxiliaries No. 420 Poeler Stock for Cooking Fowl or White Game →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's mirepoix is not the raw vegetable cube of modern usage but a rich meat-and-vegetable essence used as a braising liquid and basting medium. Read it as a two-quart batch of luxury cooking liquor, and scale it down unless you are cooking for a crowd.

The point of the fatThe instruction to strain without removing the fat is the hinge. The pork, butter and ham fat carry most of the aromatic flavor and are what make the liquid useful for moistening and basting. Skimming it turns the preparation into an ordinary stock.
MignonetteCoarsely cracked pepper, usually white; the name is traditionally said to come from a resemblance to mignonette seed. Cracked pepper suits this better than ground.
Remoistening, No. 189Ranhofer's remouillage: a second, weaker stock drawn from bones already used once. A light unsalted chicken or veal stock, or half stock and half water, stands in for it. Three quarts is the quantity.
Unsmoked hamHam cured but not smoked; unsmoked gammon is the nearest modern equivalent. Supermarket ham is usually smoked as well as heavily cured and will push the salt and smoke well past what this is meant to taste like.
Fat porkFatback or unsmoked salt pork, chopped and rendered slowly. If using salt pork, hold back the seasoning salt until the liquid has reduced and you can taste it.
TammyA stout woven worsted cloth, wrung between two people to force liquid through. A fine chinois pressed with a ladle does the same job; a colander lined with a doubled square of cheesecloth is the household equivalent.
MaceBlade mace, the lacy covering of the nutmeg. A single blade, or a scant quarter teaspoon of ground mace, is enough for this volume.
Yield and keepingThe recipe gives no yield; four quarts of liquid go in and two hours of slow boiling reduces that appreciably. Refrigerate with the fat left as a seal on top and use within a few days, or freeze in portions.
Dry mirepoixThe second preparation is not a liquid: minced raw vegetables and roots fried in lard, moistened with good stock and white wine, then reduced to dryness. Ranhofer says only that it is used to cover the breasts of fowl and game and meats to be roasted on the spit.

A Little History

Mirepoix is generally traced to the kitchen of the duc de Lévis-Mirepoix, an eighteenth-century French marshal whose cook is traditionally credited with the mixture and whose name it took; the anecdote is repeated in nineteenth-century French cookery writing more often than it is documented. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, printed this version in The Epicurean (1894) among the stocks and auxiliaries a professional brigade would keep going all day, and his mirepoix still belongs to the older, richer sense of the word: an essence built on veal, unsmoked ham and pork fat, fortified with white wine and Madeira, rather than the bare onion-carrot-celery base the term now means in English kitchens. The narrowing of the word to a few chopped vegetables happened over the twentieth century.