Or “meer-ah-pwah”, like you Francophiles might prefer, is a concoction of simple vegetables used to flavor other dishes. It popped up as an ingredient for the octopus boil en route to octopus ceviche, which was the recipe I was pursuing. I’d heard of the concoction during my years of cooking, but never tried it. As Julia says “The mirepoix is one of fine cooking’s great inspirations, an all-purpose flavor enhancer made of finely diced sautéed onions and carrots, and often celery and ham. Used in sauces, with braised vegetable like celery or with chicken breasts poached in butter, it imparts real ‘je ne sais quoi’ of sophistication to anything it is associated with (1)”. The word mirepoix comes from the last name of a French aristocrat, the Duke Charles-Pierre-Gaston François de Lévis, duc de Lévis-Mirepoix, whose cook is credited with establishing this mix of ingredients as a staple in French cooking in the eighteenth century. Love the French. If you’re a good cook, you can be immortal.
So, do you want to make your own mirepoix? Here’s the basic recipe very simple.
And on the blow-by-blow:
Here’s the veggies you need.
My onion was a little short of 8 oz, so I added a shallot, Always helps to add a shallot of recipes that call for any sort of alliums (2). Then you peel the carrot and chop everything, leaving a nice-looking bowl.
That goes into a skillet melting 1T butter (or ghee) on low heat. We frown on brown here. In 6-8 minutes, the onions should look translucent and thus ready. This isn’t something you want to dip your spoon into and chow down. Save it for providing some sophistication to soups, stews, and sauces. We took our half yield and dumped it in the octopus boil.
I bought my first octopus day before I first wrote this. With the Stanley Cup far off and our Wings even farther, we decided to eat it. It’s very clear you’re about to toss a once living creature in the pot.
An hour in the mix of bay leaf, mirepoix, and water renders the tentacles tender. Making something edible out of the head requires more effort, and some recipes say just toss it. Not us! The impetus to pursue this recipe came from our Florida trip. Prior to Karla Bonoff’s concert at the Murray Theater in Safety Harbor, we landed at Marker 39 Floribbean Cuisine, a funky little place with great outdoor seating (3). They had octopus ceviche on the menu and we had to try it, amazed with how good it was. I wrote it down as something I wanted to try when I got home. Next to us was a table of Ontarians, also pleased to be down here shedding the northern cold. I regaled them with tales of my Canadian citizen birth dad and Toronton baby sister. When they left, I sang them some lines from their national anthem “I stand on guard for thee!”.
Back to the cooking. Sounds like a joke “first you buy an octopus”. We found one at Whole Foods, their last. No prep other than a little rinsing, and into the boiling pot it goes, joining that mirepoix and a bay leaf. An hour later, it’s done.
Let it cool for a bit before hacking away. We threw ours in the freezer, then transferred to the fridge overnight. Very easy to work with the next morning. Tentacles sliced from the body easily to be chopped into 1” pieces. The head is supposed to be a hassle, and some recipes say just discard it. Apparently, there’s a beak involved but I didn’t encounter one. Maybe Whole Foods removed it. But I got the whole octopus. After that, it’s just basking in an acidic marinade for a couple of hours. Muy tasty. Here’s the whole recipe:
Some worry that octopus will be rubbery, but not the case here by any means. All-in-all, a wonderful dish, whether for appetizer or “soup” course, provided you don’t mind some suction cups staring up at you.
Bon appétit!
References
1, Child J. The Way to Cook. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989. p297. https://www.amazon.com/Way-Cook-Julia-Child/dp/0394532643/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2YJWQRBJR29WF&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ZG42X5kPljGSURagbXVMCY8joszNUj0xbq1Gd1lWQTZwoO_5_0DQ5DJNTnBSi9_Rf1TPssQswI82zR_P9xsXc6lAUUdpgCamByfOdLOKE-eBez83eGtYpBzWDP5TD3KxDLpGiviJWBAG2eiDkSFQkSoDRcCGkyQtEA2-0CZcMOuBn5GI1l2H5_p-Xp8fQ9qwof6TbQEwcM86tphHkIIudza0g3GNuzKKRrakRY9JMAo.ePD6GWND2vR8idwHa3_SiAFA-ka7mHRm3i8k99jEhMM&dib_tag=se&keywords=Julia+Child.+The+Way+to+Cook.&qid=1709044572&sprefix=julia+child.+the+way+to+cook.%2Caps%2C130&sr=8-1
2. Ike B. here’s to shallots. WordPress 3/20/22. https://theviewfromharbal.com/2022/03/20/heres-to-shallots/
3. Marker 39 Floribbean Cuisine. https://www.marker39.com
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