Читать книгу The French Menu Cookbook: The Food and Wine of France - Season by Delicious Season - Richard Olney - Страница 30

Plats cuisinés (which means, vaguely, those preparations that contain a number of elements and require a more or less involved cooking process—the term might be translated, “dishes cooked with art”) rest generally on an aromatic foundation of onions, carrots, thyme and bay leaf. Other aromas, quite as valuable, may too often be excluded, but these mentioned, in any case, lend the primary support to all stocks, court-bouillons and braised preparations, and, although the latter often require a stock as braising liquid, it is nonetheless reinforced by a new addition of these same elements. For those preparations in which the carrots remain as part of the garnish, the vegetables are simply cut up, but for the many dishes that are garnished otherwise, or only sauced, a mirepoix (or matignon, which is the same thing except that the vegetables are finely sliced rather than chopped) is used as the aromatic base. Some recipes (none in this book) call for an addition of chopped ham or salt pork. For preparations in which the sauce is passed separately, the vegetables may be chopped more coarsely. If the mirepoix is to remain in the body of the sauce, the vegetables should be chopped very finely and the woody core of the carrots should be first removed. The mirepoix may be prepared in quantity and kept in the refrigerator, but the preparation is so simple that it seems hardly worthwhile. I personally feel that it gains by a substitution of mixed herbs for thyme, but that is an affair of taste, and the following recipe is classic.