Sofrito | Veg Box Recipes with Basil & Tom’s

Our fifth and final recipe for making the most out of your veg box (in collaboration with Basil & Tom’s, Acton’s wonderful community greengrocer) is my riff on the Italian/Mediterranean classic of onions, carrots and celery – ‘Sofrito’.

It’s a great veg box use-up as you can freestyle with whatever ingredients you have (within reason!). What you are creating is a concentrated flavour base that can be frozen in little pots, (almost like your own homemade stock cube), and used to make anything from soups, casseroles, pasta dishes, and it’s a great way to get some more vegetables into your children’s food too.

Sofrito

• To make enough sofrito to use over the course of a week take 3/4 sticks of celery (outer green sticks are perfect), 3/4 carrots, one onion, 2 garlic cloves and a small head of fennel and chop everything to a very fine dice – you want everything to be a similar size so it cooks at the same time.
• Take your largest widest, ideally heavy based, frying pan, set over a low/medium heat and gently sauté the chopped vegetables in enough cold pressed extra virgin olive oil to generously cover the bottom of the pan (this is low temperature cooking so olive oil is fine – plus the olive oil flavour is a key component of the final sofrito).
• Throw in some chopped herbs like thyme and parsley, if you have them.
• Cook this way, gently moving the vegetables around the pan for around 15 minutes, until everything has cooked down and become caramelised and you are left with a soft flavourful and aromatic rubble.
• Use immediately as a base for your next creation or pot and store in the fridge under a film of oil for a week, or, freeze in smaller pots for use at a later date. Don’t forget to label and date your pots.

We ❤️ Basil & Tom’s

This first week of May 2019 we are exploring one of Basil & Tom’s fab weekly veg boxes and showing you how to use the contents in new and exciting ways, with loads of time saving tips and tricks to create a trove of delicious food to see you through the week and beyond – and ensure that you never waste a vegetable again.

We’ll be posting videos via our Instagram stories every day this week and you can find hints, tips, recipes and guidelines here on our blog and Basil & Tom’s website.

Follow the veg box magic at #BandTStories

Cook Folk Instagram /  Basil & Tom’s Instagram