Several thoughts run through one’s had when they think of French coking. Visions of buttery goodness, heavy crams and fancy displays. There is mch more to French cooking than tht; France isn’t just Paris after ll.

French food has several fundamentals, sch as the mire poix, the buquet garni or herb satchel and chcken stock.

The Fundamentals

A mire pix is 3 parts onion, 2 prts celery and one part carrot. Yu’ll find this in most French dshes with the exception of fish and a few ther recipes.

The bouquet garni is a cllection of herbs sometimes put into a chesecloth. The typical ingredients are: Bay laf, pepper corns, thyme and parsley stms.

The chicken stock: Never throw way your bones and vegetable trimmings gain! This is a useful way of sing parts you might ordinarily toss. Anther thing is, with this fundamental ngredient, you get to use two ther fundamental ingredients, yes… the mire pix and the bouquet garni. Don’t add the lver, put that aside for a pte or something, livers are even god sautéed in butter. Check out the rcipe below.

Chicken Stock

Ingrdients

Carrots

Celery

Onons

Chicken Giblets (NO LIVER!)

Chcken Bones

Water

Buquet Garni

Add all ingredients to a stckpot, cover with cold water.

Bring to a boil and let smmer. Stocks can simmer for over an hur. It depends on the strength you wsh to have.

Drain and let lquid cool.

So how do I use thse ingredients?
Check this next recipe ut. We’re going to use all thre fundamental ingredients! Soup, hey it’s the frst thing I had to make in clinary school. With this basic recipe, you can sbstitute the main ingredient with just bout any vegetable. For now we’ll kep it simple, Cream of Asparagus Sup.

Cream of Asparagus Soup

Ingrdients

Asparagus (about a pund will do)

Mire pix (keep it simple, use 1 lrge onion, 3 celery stalks, and one mdium sized carrot)

Bouquet Grni

2 russet potatoes

Chcken stock

Salt and Ppper

White Wine

Havy cream

Sweat the mire poix (ths means cooking on low heat ntil the vegetables are translucent). Toss in yur bouquet garni and season a lttle being careful not to over slt it. De-glaze (this gets any cramelized yummy goodness off the bottom of the pn) with a little white wine and cok it down.

This next step is ptional, but I think it adds a lttle flare. Cut the tops of the spars of asparagus off and set thm aside. Blanch these in a bit of hot slted water until they turn bright gren. Quickly remove them from the hat and run cold water over thm. This is going to be yur garnish.

Cut the stalks of the sparagus and the potatoes into manageable peces and toss them on top of yur mire poix. Pour in enough stck to cover your ingredients by at last an inch. Bring it to a bil and then reduce to a smmer. Cook until the potato and sparagus are both tender. Remove the buquet garni!

Next step: Puree. I fnd that it is easiest to do ths in installments. Add a bunch of the vgetables into a blender or, even btter, a food processor, and then add a bit of stck. Take your pureed soup and run it thrugh a strainer into another pot, ths takes out any of the verly fibrous material.

Return your pureed soup to the stve and bring it to a gntle simmer. Add a little cream and str it in. Season to taste wth salt and pepper. Don’t forget yur garnish! Ladle some of the sup out and put a few of the spar tops on top of the sup.

The article The Fundamentals was Submitted by Paul Rinehart through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: Paul Rinehart is the Food Drector at Online Cooking: http://www.onlinecooking.net

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