What is a minionet, how is it used. Calorie content and useful properties of the seasoning, harm when used. Recipes with a mixture of spices and interesting facts about her. The pepper mixture is interesting for the production of digestive enzymes. When ingested in small quantities, it increases appetite and stimulates taste buds. If the goal is weight loss, then it is enough to increase the "dose", and the opposite effect occurs. The taste of food ceases to be felt, the feeling of hunger is blocked. This effect of the minionet on the body is provided by natural alkaloids, which are part of almost all spices.
Harm and contraindications to the use of the minionet
Contraindications to the use of the minionet are the same as when introducing products into the diet that increase the acidity of gastric juice and speed up metabolism.
It is undesirable to abuse the mixture of hot spices:
- With gastritis with high acidity and peptic ulcer;
- With a tendency to exacerbate pancreatitis;
- With urolithiasis and gallstone disease;
- If diarrhea occurs frequently, which is not necessarily food-related;
- With frequent occurrence of heartburn.
If discomfort in the epigastric region and burning sensation in the larynx are felt almost daily after eating spices and seasonings, you should not even try to improve the taste of the dish with the help of a mignonet in the hope that the condition will improve. Pepper peas or in bulk in a dish irritates the mucous membrane. The minionette is softer, but not much.
In case of erosive damage to the oral mucosa or esophagus, it is necessary to abandon the use of peppers in any form.
When making food for young children, the minionette is not used.
Mignonet recipes
Modern chefs use not only the mignonette in its original form, but also the pepper mixture to improve the taste of gourmet dishes. Steak au poivre is a popular English beef fillet pepper steak that is baked on a pillow of pepper. And the mignonet itself is traditionally used to make pea soup or fried pork.
Before looking for recipes with a mignonet, first prepare the seasoning itself. The bag is sewn from thin linen or canvas. The advice that you can wrap the spice mixture in the corner of a handkerchief does not work. Ordinary handkerchiefs are sewn from thin cotton, through the holes in which pepper grains pour out.
The simplest pepper mixture is made according to the following recipe. Grind in a pepper mill separately black and white peppercorns, clove sticks. The grinder is not good, you don't need powder, but small pieces. If no pepper mill is available, use a mortar. Combine all the spices in equal amounts and place half a tablespoon of the mixture in a cotton bag.
You can dip the bag into the finished dish, into a common container, holding for 2 minutes, or into each plate for 30-40 seconds. Use a portion of the minionet at a time. The fabric is then washed, dried and filled with fresh pepper mixture for the next meal.
Dishes for which the mignonet is used:
- Caramel sauce for meat and fish dishes … Heat a deep frying pan with a thick bottom over the fire, add 5 tablespoons of granulated sugar and reduce the heat so that the sugar slowly dissolves. It is necessary to constantly stir and make sure that the caramel does not burn during cooking. Once the sugar is half dissolved, pour 1/3 teaspoon of the mignonet prepared according to the above recipe and a quarter teaspoon of salt into the pan. When the caramel has already become liquid, pour in a little more than half a glass of tomato juice, it is better to do it yourself. Next, the mixture is boiled until thickened. The sauce is cooled first to room temperature, then cooled on ice. High-quality sauce does not stratify when cooled.
- Basque scrambled eggs … The basil is washed. Half of the bunch is divided according to the principle: large leaves are crushed, small leaves are laid as a whole. Onions, about 200 g, finely chopped. 2 large red and yellow bell peppers are dipped whole in hot olive oil, cooled, seeds and white partitions removed, and then cut into strips. Cut 200 g of tomatoes into small pieces, first doused with boiling water to remove the thin skin. The bone marrow from 2 pork shanks is placed in a preheated saucepan, a little olive oil is added (you can use the one in which the bell peppers were dipped). Pour onion, pieces of sweet pepper, chopped meat from one shank into the same stewpan. Before the end of cooking, when moisture has evaporated from the vegetables, add a bouquet of garni, slices of tomatoes, 3 cloves of crushed garlic. After about an hour, when the meat is still harsh, it is taken out, and pieces of dry-cured ham (100 g) are poured into a saucepan, chopped basil leaves, and the mignonette is lowered for 2 minutes. This amount of sauce is designed for an omelet of 10-12 eggs. First, the whites are carefully separated from the yolks. The whites are whipped, filtered through a fine conical sieve (chinua), sprinkled with flowers of salt (this is the name of the salt that is harvested by hand in the Camargue lagoons in France) or just coarse sea salt. Mix proteins with sauce, quickly fry, stirring occasionally. Then stop stirring, achieve a fried crust on both sides, grease the omelet with olive oil. Sprinkle raw yolks with a minionet. Scrambled eggs are divided into portions, each garnished with raw yolks and small basil leaves.
- Oysters with pepper sauce … Chop shallots to make half a glass (instead of shallots, you can use red sweet "Crimean" onions). Mix the chopped onion, 1 tablespoon of sherry, 3 tablespoons of white wine vinegar, a teaspoon of mignonet, a pinch (about 1/4 teaspoon each) of sugar and salt. The sauce is mixed well so that the sugar and salt are completely dissolved, cover with a lid and leave to infuse. The mixture is infused for at least 1-1, 5 hours. Oysters are handled before serving. The shells are opened with a special knife. The oyster is wrapped in a towel so that the flap is on top. The tip of the knife is pushed into the shells and slowly begins to move. You need to hold the knife in such a way that the blade cuts the muscle holding the upper flap, and the sea water does not flow out of the shell. Cut off the top shells of the oysters, transfer the meat to the lower ones. The shells are placed on a plate with fine crushed ice, a little sauce is poured into each. While the dish is being served to the client, the sauce is absorbed just enough to give it an original taste.
- French pea soup … Peas, 0.5 kg, washed with cold water and soaked for 8 hours. It is better to do this in the evening, and cook the soup in the morning. Ideally, the water should be drained as soon as it becomes cloudy. But if this does not work out, then the peas are washed in several waters after soaking so that there is no mucus left. Cut 5 potato tubers into small cubes, cut 1 celery and leek into circles, rub 2 medium carrots on a coarse grater. Peel the onion and 2 garlic prongs. Sticks of cloves to the onion pin 2 bay leaves, pound or chop the garlic. Preheat a frying pan, pour in sunflower oil, fry the leeks until soft. A pot of water is placed on the burner, heated to a boil, and vegetables are added to the leeks and also fried. Peas are dipped in boiling water, then vegetable frying. Cook until potatoes are cooked. Just before turning off, immerse a blender in the soup and bring to full homogeneity. Next, add chopped not very fatty ham or bacon, lower a bouquet of greens - parsley, sage, oregano, thyme. You can add celery leaves. When the soup is turned off, add salt and lower the mignon for 2 minutes. You can cook the soup in meat broth. The cooking principle is the same, only add vegetables when the meat is almost ready. When chopping vegetables, the meat is taken out, finely chopped and poured into each plate, mixed with ham.
- Pepper steak … Beef tenderloin, 450-500 g, cut into portions so that the thickness of each is 3 cm, and beat off. The mignonet is heated in a dry frying pan and coated with the side surfaces of future steaks. Wrap them with foil around the edges, fry in a pan until tender, set aside. The sauce is prepared in the same pan where the meat was fried. Pour into a hot frying pan a quarter of a glass of brandy or white wine, a teaspoon of pickled green peppercorns for 1 steak. Let the wine evaporate a little, pour in the heavy cream and stir until the sauce thickens. An easier way to cook steaks. The meat is beaten, 5-6 blind punctures are made in each piece on both sides. They are marinated for 2 hours in the marinade. To make the marinade, the mignonet is mixed with strips of red hot pepper, crushed garlic and brandy or sherry. These steaks are grilled.
The mignonet is used in the preparation of salad dressings and classic French sauces, which are served with meat dishes. The seasoning in the bag is used to flavor soups.
Interesting facts about the minionet
English chefs call the minionette "short pepper". Dry shallots must be added to the mixture. This seasoning is traditionally added to sauces, one of the essential ingredients of which is vinegar. The type of vinegar - wine, ordinary, apple - does not matter.
A minionette is called not only a mixture of spices, but also small porcelain dolls. Girls from noble families played with such toys, each doll had an extensive wardrobe.
If crushed peppers are added to gourmet dishes in their pure form, it is difficult to obtain a perfect consistency. It is impossible to completely remove the ground product even when filtering, the liquid turns out to be cloudy. The sauces may flake off when straining again. And crushed peppers in a bag quickly give off aroma and do not degrade the quality of the dish.
Watch the video about the minionet:
The mignonette will help give your homemade dishes a new flavor. It can be added to regular cereals, scrambled eggs, unsweetened pastries.