MirepoixThe only mother sauce whose thickening comes mostly from the vegetable itself. Pork fat, a little flour and long slow cooking do the rest.
| Time | |
|---|---|
| Servings | 4 |
| Difficulty | Medium |
| Equipment | Heavy saucepan, wooden spoon, food mill or sieve |
- 40 g — smoked bacon
- 15 g — butter
- 50 g — carrot
- 50 g — onion
- 15 g — plain flour
- 600 g — ripe tomatoes
- 200 ml — light chicken stock
- 5 g — sugar
- 1 pc — bay leaf
- 1 pc — thyme
- 4 g — salt
- 1 pinch — cracked black pepper
600 g tomato : 200 ml stock
- Render the bacon slowly in the butter until most of its fat has run. Add the carrot and onion and cook until they are soft but not brown.
- Scatter in the flour and let it cook for two minutes until it just begins to colour. Add the tomatoes, stock, sugar, bay and thyme.
- Cover and cook on the lowest heat for an hour and a half, stirring now and then. The tomatoes should collapse completely.
- Pass it through a food mill or press it through a sieve — the skins and seeds stay behind and the sauce turns velvet. Season, and if it tastes sharp add sugar a pinch at a time rather than all at once.
Pasta, eggs, grilled fish, anything breaded. Half tomato and half Espagnole is the classic sauce for roast pork and for a plain omelette both.
Sauces in this library built on Tomato Sauce
- Provençale: + olive oil, garlic, parsley, cayenne · − smoked bacon, butter, carrot, onion, plain flour, light chicken stock, sugar, bay leaf, thyme, cracked black pepper
- Portugaise: + olive oil, garlic, parsley · − smoked bacon, butter, carrot, plain flour, light chicken stock, bay leaf, thyme, salt, cracked black pepper
- Créole: + celery, cayenne, garlic, olive oil · − smoked bacon, butter, carrot, plain flour, light chicken stock, sugar, cracked black pepper
- Milanaise: + button mushrooms, garlic, dry white wine, olive oil, Parmesan, grated · − butter, carrot, plain flour, light chicken stock, sugar, bay leaf, thyme, cracked black pepper
- One serving (1 of 4): smoked bacon 10 g, butter 3.75 g, carrot 12.5 g, onion 12.5 g, plain flour 3.75 g, ripe tomatoes 150 g, light chicken stock 50 ml, sugar 1.25 g, salt 1 g
- Double batch (8 servings): smoked bacon 80 g, butter 30 g, carrot 100 g, onion 100 g, plain flour 30 g, ripe tomatoes 1,200 g, light chicken stock 400 ml, sugar 10 g, bay leaf 2 pc, thyme 2 pc, salt 8 g
In the same library
Source · Mirepoix · Auguste Escoffier, Le Guide Culinaire (1907), no. 29