“Braised-n-Glazed” Mirepoix Side Dish with Lemon Mushrooms

To download a copy of this recipe for “Braised-n-Glazed” Mirepoix Side Dish with Lemon Mushrooms, click HERE!

Mirepoix (meer-PWAH), the classic French combination of carrots, onions, and celery, is generally used to add great flavor and aroma to soups, sauces, stews, stocks, and other foods. (As a side note, when the French settled in Louisiana, the mirepoix concept they brought with them eventually evolved into the region’s famous “Trinity” – equal parts celery, onions, and peppers – that serves a similar purpose in that local cuisine.)

Such great flavor and aroma, in fact, that it seems a shame to keep it in the background. I believe it’s time to give this time-honored workhorse vegetable combination a more prominent place on your plate as featured - and great tasting - vegetable side dish.

To make mirepoix a side dish we’ll need to modify it a bit. Classic mirepoix is prepared with 1 part-by-weight carrots, 1 part-by-weight celery, and two parts-by-weight onion. In this recipe, those proportions have been adjusted to emphasize the carrots. A bit of garlic was added. The celery and carrots were browned, braised in seasoned vegetable stock, and the braising liquid was then sweetened and cooked down to a glaze. Finally, to add contrast with the sweetness of the glaze, sliced mushrooms sautéed in olive oil and lemon were added. (Note, too, that for the browning and sautéing, I used olive oil in place of the more traditional, but considerably less heart-healthy, butter.)

This recipe makes four side-dish size servings.

First, let’s make the seasoning mix.

Combine the following seasoning mix ingredients and set aside: ½ tsp dried marjoram; ½ tsp dried thyme; ½ tsp dried basil; ½ tsp dried rosemary; ¼ tsp dried sage; and ¼ tsp dried tarragon.

Next, we’ll prepare our vegetables.

Julienne ½ a Vidalia onion.

Mince 6 garlic cloves.

Slice 8 ounces of mushrooms. (Better yet, open an 8 ounce package of sliced fresh mushrooms.)

Peel 1 pound of carrots, and cut on-the-bias into equal size coins.

Slice 4 large celery stalks to equal thickness.

Next, start browning the carrots and cooking the onions:

Heat a small amount of olive oil over medium-high heat in a skillet. Add the carrots in a single layer and cook undisturbed until lightly browned. Turn the carrots over and cook for a few minutes. When done, the carrots should be cooked only about half-way, not cooked through completely. Season to taste.

While the carrots are browning in the skillet, heat a small amount of olive oil over medium heat in a sauté pan and add the onions. Cook until the onions are soft and browned, adding the garlic for the last few minutes of the cooking. Season to taste. When done, set the onions aside onto paper towels.

Next, we cook the celery and add the carrots:

When the carrots are done cooking, set aside in a bowl, reduce the heat to medium, and put the celery and a small amount of olive oil in the pan. 

When the celery is half-way cooked (similar to the carrots), season to taste, reduce the heat to low, and return the carrots to the skillet and mix with the celery. Add about ½ cup of white wine, the seasoning mix, and enough vegetable stock to cover the carrots and celery about half way. (The amount of stock you’ll need depends on your skillet, but will probably be between 1 and 2 cups.) Cover the skillet and allow to simmer until tender but not mushy.

Now for the mushrooms:

While the carrots and celery are braising, add a small amount of oil and the mushrooms to the sauté pan. Sauté until cooked through, adding the fresh-squeezed juice of ½ lemon. After the mushrooms are at least partially cooked, season to taste. (Adding salt too soon can draw needed moisture from the fresh mushrooms.)

To finish the side dish:

When the carrot and celery mixture is cooked, remove the cover, add ½ tablespoon of sugar, mix to combine, and increase the heat to high.

Stirring frequently to avoid burning, leave the skillet uncovered and let the liquid cook down to a glaze.

Combine the carrots and celery with the mushrooms and the onions. Transfer to a serving dish, and garnish with parsley as in the photo at the top. Serve hot as a side dish.

To download a copy of this recipe for “Braised-n-Glazed” Mirepoix Side Dish with Lemon Mushrooms, click HERE!

Serve this with your next entrée, and you’ve got a vegetable side that’s both delicious and healthy!

Please visit again next week for another tasty, kitchen tested recipe! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)

Salt-and-Vinegar Glazed Carrots with Herbed Buttermilk-Honey Biscuits

New this week:

(This is kind of like the beginning part of the church service where they make all the announcements about who had a baby and when the Women’s Group is scheduled to meet.)

• New subscriber: Welcome, Gloria…it’s great to have you here! 
• Special thanks: To Rachael Monaco, who this week featured a number of Kissing the Cook recipes on her Facebook page and who, herself, publishes some great-looking recipes for the Buffalo, NY edition of the Examiner on-line publication (http://www.examiner.com/buffalo). Check out Rachael’s articles: there are some summer recipes there right now that you might even find useful this weekend! 
• Other notes: Followers of Tawnya’s food blog will be interested in knowing it has moved. Click here for her new location.

Now let's eat!

This week, we continue with our Country Oven-Fried Steak recipe. In last week’s post, we made the star of the show, the steak itself, along with the all-important gravy that must be applied generously to both the steak and the traditional mashed potato side. In part 2 this week, we continue with the other two side dishes: Salt-and-Vinegar Glazed Carrots with Herbed Buttermilk-Honey Biscuits.

A couple of notes before we begin:

• As was the case with the buttermilk-dipped steaks used for last week’s Country Oven Fried Steaks, if you don’t have other things to do with the rest of the quart of buttermilk you get at the supermarket, you can use acidulated milk to make your buttermilk biscuits. You can make it by adding 1 tablespoon of white vinegar to every 1 cup of room-temperature low-fat milk and letting it rest for five minutes to create a controlled curdle. (Just don't call them Acidulated Milk Biscuits or you'll spend too much time explaining and too little time eating.) 
• In general, the process of glazing carrots consists of mixing the carrots in a pan with your glazing ingredients, and cooking until the mixture is reduced so much there’s little or no liquid left in the pan. This makes for a delicious glaze as long as you end the cooking at the right time, but you can imagine how keeping the heat on the carrots even a little too long can leave them burned and unworthy of the rest of this delicious meal. Be careful out there.

Let’s start with the biscuits. (The recipe below makes about eight 3” biscuits.)

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

While the oven is preheating, in a large bowl combine 1-1/2 cups of all purpose flour and ½ cup pastry flour (or 2 cups all-purpose flour); 1 tablespoon of dried parsley, rosemary or any other herb that matches well to the rest of the meal; 1 teaspoon of kosher salt; 2 teaspoons of baking powder; and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda. After the dry ingredients are mixed, cut in ¾ cup of very cold butter substitute (keep it in the freezer till you’re ready, making sure it doesn’t freeze) until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Make a well in the center of the mixture and add 1 tablespoon of honey and ¾ cup low-fat buttermilk or acidulated low-fat milk. Quickly mix with your hands until a sticky dough forms.

Put baking sheet in oven. While the baking sheet is pre-heating, turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface and fold it onto itself at least 3 or 4 times to form layers.

Roll or pat the dough to ¾” thick and cut with a 3” biscuit cutter. Transfer cut-out biscuits to the baking pan. Gather the scraps and repeat.

Use your thumb to make an indentation in the top center of each biscuit to help the top rise evenly. Brush with melted butter substitute and bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

While the biscuits are baking, let’s make the carrots. The recipe below makes four servings.

Cut 1-1/2 pounds of carrots into 1” pieces on a bias.

Place the carrots, 2 tablespoons of butter substitute, 1 tablespoon of kosher salt, ¼ cup white wine vinegar, and 2 tablespoons of honey into a skillet large enough for the carrots to be in a single layer. Add enough water to come half-way up the carrots.

Bring the liquid to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Simmer with the cover ajar until the carrots are tender, about 8 minutes.

Remove the cover and raise the heat to high. Toss the carrots frequently while the liquid evaporates and the carrots get a shiny glaze. (Remember not to overcook. It’s ok to brown the carrots a little – it’s even good to do so - but not to burn them.)

Once the liquid has cooked off and the carrots are glazed. garnish with parsley and serve!

And there you have it! If narrative recipes aren’t your style and you prefer a cookbook style, notebook-ready version of this or any other Kissing the Cook recipe, send me your e-mail address and it will be sent.

See you all next week! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and, as we enjoy some great food this Memorial Day weekend, remember to kiss a veteran.  And, after that, kiss the cook. :-;