Soffritto

1 Servings

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
1 Carrot
2 Celery stalks; (leaves included)
1 Onion; (according to taste), up to
5 Garlic cloves; (according to taste), up to
3 tablespoons Olive oil; (but any vegetable oil would do) (up to 4)
Fresh or dried herbs to taste; (sage, rosemary, thyme and laurel are generally used)

Directions

From: Lucretia B <lucretiab@...> Clean, wash and chop carrot, celery and garlic. Place them in a large saucepan (big enough to contain the "final" preparation) with the oil and the herbs of your choice. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until the vegetables are very tender and reduced in volume to approx ½ of their original size. In the meantime, finely slice or chop the onion. Add the onion to the other vegetables and continue cooking for another 10 to 30 minutes, until the onion is nearly dissolved.

At this point, "soffritto" is ready. You can add tomatoes and salt, and cook for another 30 minutes, for the simplest spaghetti sauce. You can use it as a basis for legume dishes (beans, lentils, peas), or soups, or stewed vegetables/meats.

If you want to prepare soffritto in bulk, you can multiply the above "rate" by 4, or 10, or whatever. Just keep in mind that it has to be cooked in a fairly wide pan, as the evaporating surface has to be large enough for the vegetables to be "gently fried", rather than cooked in their liquid. I also suggest that you use more oil (say, an additional tablespoon for each additional "rate") - it's not going to be too "greasy", anyway! Use small glass jars for canning and storage, as you will need more or less ½ tb per serving to season further preparations.

Posted to recipelu-digest by Bulldogfla <Bulldogfla@...> on Mar 9, 1998

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