BUILDING FLAVOR, BODY AND TEXTURE: PART 1
Cooks do not think in terms of flavor analysis. They are concerned with the totality of flavor perceived by the diner. They know how a dish is supposed to taste, and they build toward that taste each time they make that dish.
In building foods the cook works with two kinds of flavor, predominant flavor and support flavor. Just as a building has a major structural element, such as wood, concrete, or steel, a dish can have a major material in its construction, such as beef, onion, or asparagus. It may not be the major material in terms of volume (celery soup, for example, has far less celery than it has liquid), but it is the material that determines the character of the dish. This major material, or main ingredient, will contribute the predominant flavor—major flavor—of the dish.
Other ingredients may be added in the cooking to enhance the flavor of the main ingredient. We call these flavor builders, and the kind of flavor they provide is what we call support flavor. The flavor builders should never be allowed to overwhelm the predominant flavor. A good understanding of the relationships between predominant and support flavors is one of the most important keys to successful cooking.
The basic flavor builder in soups and sauces is a liquid known as stock. Stock itself has a predominant flavor that comes from bones, and it has support flavors that come from flavor builders.
Let us look at some of the flavor builders commonly used in making stocks, soups, and sauces. Several standard groupings are used in professional cooking mirepoix, bouquet garni, sachet, onion pique, and the group of herbs and spices used with a mirepoix in making stock.
The group of flavor builders known as a mirepoix (meer-pwah) is a combination of rough-cut vegetables—onion, carrot, celery, and sometimes leek. A standard flavor builder for stocks, it is also used in soups, sauces, and braised dishes, and it is often added to the pan liquids from roast meat if a sauce is to be made from them. Mirepoix was named for a French general. Though this custom of naming foods after the cook's master or the king's mistress can be confusing until you get used to it, it also lends color to the kitchen. "Mirepoix," once you've mastered it, is much more interesting than "cut-up vegetables."
Standard ratios of ingredients for a basic mirepoix are 50 percent onion (or part onion and part
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