from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
bryangnewman@gmail.com
Foie de Veau
Calf’s Liver
Photograph and instructions courtesy of Temps de Cuisson
Part 1 Calf and Beef Liver
Part 2 Tongue
Part 1
Foie de Veau, Calf’s Liver
and Foie de Bœuf, beef liver
in French cuisine.
Liver plays
an important role in French cuisine, with varied recipes reflecting regional
traditions and techniques. Whether fried, grilled, or part of a pâté, the recipes for liver show
the range of French cuisine. The difference between UK, USA and French laws and
traditions may not be well-known, but it is there. In France, apart from
milk-fed calves, the calf's liver on the menu will come from a three to eight-month-old
calf. In the USA and UK, a calf can be up to 12 months, and there is a
difference in taste and texture; in France, after eight months, a calf becomes
a génisse. So, in France, liver is
valued both for its different tastes and for the differences in texture.
Foie de Veau - Calf's liver is the most
popular liver on French menus. It is pale, exceptionally tender, and
slightly sweet, with an almost buttery flavor. Milder, more delicate, and
subtly sweeter than beef liver, as its tender, velvety texture is highly
prized.
Chefs usually
serve it rosé (pink in the center) to preserve its delicate
softness and flavor, which gives it its prized ability to "melt in the
mouth."
If you prefer
your calf's liver cooked a little closer to well-done, you should tell the
server: “Je voudrais le foie de veau bien cuit, s'il vous plaît” ("I
prefer the veal liver well cooked, please"). Be prepared for a subtle air
of culinary shock—like you've asked for ketchup with a fine steak. Expect less drama in bistro or casual
tourist-friendly spot.
Foie de Veau de Lait—Milk-fed calf’s liver. Considered
the pinnacle of tenderness, it's a pale pink and ultra-delicate with a subtle,
creamy sweetness and an almost mousse-like texture. Here, it's the male calves
that will not grow up to provide milk and are not suitable for beef, and still have
only been fed milk. Chefs treat this liver with reverence, searing it
very quickly to preserve its unique texture.
Foie de Génisse - Liver from a young
heifer or bull calf of eight to twelve months that offers more depth of flavor
than calf's liver while keeping a mellow texture.
Foie de Bœuf - Beef liver is darker in color, firmer in texture, and stronger
in taste and prized for its ability to stand up to the bolder seasonings often
seen in rustic regional dishes.
Liver
and your health
French cuisine is
known for being healthy and usually I keep my focus on the culinary side of the
dishes. However, calves' and cows' liver do supply a great deal more vitamin
B12, Vitamin B9, heme iron and vitamin A than other meats. Beef liver
will also appear in pâtés or terrines,
often combined with other meats and fats (that's usually pig's liver, which
rarely makes restaurant menus alone).
Foie de veau, calf's liver on French
Menus:
Foie de Veau en Persillade. Purée
de Pommes de Terre au Beurre en Persillade -
Liver
pan-fried in butter, and then, just before serving, the chopped parsley
(persil) and garlic (ail) mixture
is added to the hot pan, usually with a quick deglazing of vinegar or white
wine that helps coat the liver slices.
Purée de Pommes de Terre au Beurre:
Mashed
potatoes or a very smooth potato purée) prepared with butter, but not a
standard side dish of mashed potatoes; in French cuisine, a purée au beurre
implies rich, creamy mashed potatoes made with a generous amount of butter.
Foie
De Veau Persille
Calf's liver with a parsley sauce.
Photograph
courtesy of Trip Advisor
Foie de Veau Poêlé, Purée Maison,
Oignons Glacés, Sauce au Lillet Blanc- Pan-Fried
Calf's Liver with the restaurant's special pureed potatoes, glazed onions and a
sauce made with Lillet Blanc.
Oignons Glacés:
Glazed onions will have been slowly cooked to a caramelized, sweet finish.
Sauce au Lillet Blanc:
A white Lillet sauce. Lillet is a vin aromatisé, an
aromatic, French apéritif wine from Bordeaux with red and white versions
available. The white, Lillet Blanc, is drier, with an aroma of
oranges and mint (the red has a more port-like taste with the scent of oranges
and vanilla). The sauce is made by using the Lillet Blanc to
deglaze the pan after the liver and onions are cooked. The citrus flavors in
the Lillet provide a tangy contrast to the richness of the liver and the
sweetness of the glazed onions.
Foie de Veau Poêlé,
Sauce Bordelaise, Échalotes, Purée de Pommes de Terre au Beurre -
Pan-seared veal liver with Bordelaise sauce, shallots, and buttered mashed
potatoes.
Sauce Bordelaise:
A beautiful sauce for meat dishes. It is made with veal stock, Bordeaux red
wine, butter, shallots, mushrooms, and herbs.
Foie de Veau à
la Lyonnaise
-A
traditional veal dish from Paris's competitor for the title of gastronomic
capital of France, Lyon.
The liver is served with caramelized onions and a
vinegar-based sauce.
à la Lyonnaise
– in the manner of Lyon. This nearly always indicates a dish with onions.
Foie De Veau Aux Oignons
Caramélisés
Veal liver with caramelized onions
Photograph
and recipe courtesy of Montpak International
Foie de Veau en Chapelure
d'Herbes, Jus Au Vin Rouge - The sautéed liver
slices will be coated with a mixture of breadcrumbs and fresh herbs. The jus
is a red wine sauce made with the natural cooking juices. The red wine used
will not be too full-bodied, as it might overpower the lighter-tasting veal.
Foie de Veau à la Venetienne et sa
Polenta – This is a Venetian speciality, but it
makes many French menus. The calf's liver is sliced into
very thin strips, seasoned, and pan-fried quickly in butter and/or olive oil
until it is browned on the outside but still tender and slightly pink (rosé)
on the inside and served with large quantities of thinly sliced white
onions.
The white onions
will be gently fried in butter or oil until they are soft and sweet, but not
caramelized. Their sweetness is the counterpoint to the flavor of the
liver. The liver and onions are combined in the pan, usually with a
little white wine (or sometimes vinegar or lemon juice) to create a sweet and
subtly tangy sauce.
Polenta:
The traditional Italian cornmeal dish; the cornmeal is cooked with milk
or stock until it reaches a soft, thick, porridge-like consistency. (A
similar cornmeal from France is called polente). Before the
French Revolution, the central government and the large landowners considered
famine part of the natural order; until the arrival of corn, the peasants
suffered terribly when there were poor harvests, and tens of thousands would
starve. Storage of cereals for the bad times was up to the landowner, and
mostly, they preferred to keep the minimum required for next year's planting,
along with enough for their own family. With corn, everyone could store
the grain, and the cobs and stalks would be feed for the animals. Polenta is
easily made, though chefs do go to great lengths to make their versions
special. The mild, grainy texture of polenta is perfect for soaking up
the juices in this dish.
Liver
and onions with a Cognac
and
butter sauce, and polenta
Photograph
courtesy of stu_spivack
https://www.flickr.com/photos/stuart_spivack/4182917738/
Foie
de Veau de Lait
Liver
from a milk-fed calf.
Foie de
Veau de Lait aux Échalotes et Balsamique – Milk-fed calf's liver prepared with
shallots and Balsamic vinegar. Milk-fed veal liver (foie de
veau de lait) is paler, sweeter, more tender, and milder in flavor than regular
calf's liver (foie de veau) or beef liver (foie de bœuf). In France,
calves are fed by their mother; it will be very rare to read or see a bottle-fed
calf.
Échalotes: There are 13 or more
different types of cultivated shallots available in French markets, and France
is also the world's largest exporter of shallots. All shallots are descendants
of the originals brought back to France from the Holy Land by the crusaders.
The word échalotes evolved from the Old French word escalote, and
possibly from the Latin caepa ascalonia (onion from Ascalon, a variant
of Ashkelon, the city in Israel). Outside of France, there are even more
types of shallots, though in the USA or UK supermarket, you'll be lucky to see
more than one type of shallot on sale.
Balsamic Vinegar: This vinegar is typically added to the pan after the
liver and shallots are cooked to create a sweet and sour reduction. Balsamic
vinegar is only legally produced in and around the city of Modena, Italy.
Despite balsamic vinegar's Italian provenance, the French recognize and happily
receive the best products from around the world, and they incorporate them into
their kitchens. Balsamic vinegar comes from the Trebbiano grape and owes
its unique taste not only to that grape but also to the manner in which it is
aged. A young balsamic vinegar will rarely be less than five years old.
Foie De Génisse
Liver
from an eight to twelve-month-old calf
Foie De Génisse Poêlé Au
Beurre – Liver pan-fried in butter and usually
served rosé (pink inside) with mashed potatoes and the season's vegetables.
Foie de Génisse Grillé, Jus
au Vinaigre de Xérès – Grilled liver served
with a reduced veal stock and sherry vinegar sauce.
Jus au Vinaigre De Xérès: Despite its Spanish
provenance, sherry vinegar is very popular in French
kitchens. Sherry vinegar is aged in oak barrels for a minimum
of six months. The different tastes of the different sherry vinegars available
allow the chef to produce some very special sauces.
Foie de Bœuf
Beef
liver
Foie de Bœuf aux Oignons
Caramélisés et Montbazillac AOP -
Beef liver with caramelized onions and a sauce made with the natural cooking juices and the golden
Montbazillac dessert wine from the Dordogne.
Monbazillac is an AOP wine that comes from the area of Périgord Poupre, in the Bergerac wine region in southwest France (just to the
east of the Bordeaux wine region). The wine is affected by noble rot (botrytis
cinerea), which concentrates the sugars and gives the wine its signature
sweetness, and that differentiates Monbazillac from dry white wines.
Foie de Bœuf au Vinaigre de
Cidre, Purée de Pommes de Terre –Beef liver
pan-fried with onions or shallots with cider vinegar that is used to deglaze the pan and make the sauce; the
mashed potatoes will help soak up the richness of the sauce. A dish like this
is typical of French country cooking—simple, but flavorful.
Foie de Bœuf à l'Anglaise – Beef liver in the manner of the English. Foie de Bœuf à
l'Anglaise and the British dish of beef liver and onions share some
similarities, but they are not the same. The French recipe will have liver
quickly cooked and often served with a sauce, usually made from butter, stock,
or a reduction with shallots or herbs. The French version may include onions,
but it's not the central element as it is in the British dish. The French focus
is on the liver and the richness of the butter sauce.
The British dish of beef liver and onions is a more straightforward preparation, where liver is usually
fried after being seasoned and floured and served with lots of onions, often
caramelized in the same pan until soft and sweet. The onions play a more
prominent role in the dish and are usually served on top of the liver. The
sauce will be just the pan juices, though some recipes do add gravy.
Part
two
Langue
Tongue
Langue de
Bœuf Sauce Madère
Beef tongue
with Madeira
sauce.
Photograph
and recipe courtesy of CuisineAZ
In French cuisine,
tongue (langue)
represents the essence of cuisine bourgeoise (middle-class cooking),
which transforms every part of the animal into rich, flavorful meals. The key
to cooking tongue is slow, long cooking, by boiling or poaching before being
served with a savory sauce. Beef tongue (langue de bœuf) is the most popular, followed by
veal tongue (langue
de veau). Beef tongue stands out for its balance of tender,
melt-in-the-mouth texture that offers a mild but rich beef flavor. Veal tongue
is appreciated for its finer, more delicate texture and its milder flavor.
Tongue absorbs spices and sauces beautifully, allowing for a wide range of
recipes, and that makes it a popular choice in French homes and restaurants.
Tongue on French Menus:
Langue de Bœuf Sauce Madère
- Beef
tongue with Madeira sauce; France’s
classic recipe for tongue.
Sauce Madère:
is made with a smooth, fragrant, medium-dry Madeira wine
from the Portuguese Madeira Islands in the North Atlantic. The wine can
have an alcohol content of between 18 and 21 percent. Only four white
grapes and one red grape are approved for single-grape Madeira wines, and from
these, the chef will usually choose for tongue either the Verdelho wine
or the Bual wine for the sauce. Verdelho is a golden, semi-dry
wine, and the Bual Madeira is slightly sweeter.
Langue de
Bœuf Sauce Piquante – Beef tongue with a piquant sauce is a classic bistro dish
that features tender slices of beef tongue served with a tangy, flavorful
sauce.
The word piquante, which can suggest heat, very
few French dishes are truly spicy in the sense of chili heat. In this case, the
piquancy comes from ingredients like white wine, vinegar, cornichons, and
capers—there are no hot peppers involved.
The dish is typically served with rice or boiled
potatoes, which help soak up the bright, savory sauce.
Langue
de Bœuf Sauce Piquante et
Purée Maison
Beef tongue with a
piquant sauce and the house’s special potato puree
Photograph courtesy of
Trip Advisor
Langue de Bœuf à la Bourguignonne
-
Beef tongue in the style of Burgundy. This dish features beef tongue served in
a savory, aromatic sauce made with dry red wine from Burgundy. The sauce
typically includes lardons (bacon pieces),
mushrooms, carrots,
onions or shallots, and a blend of herbs. It’s essentially a beef tongue stew
prepared in the style of the classic Bœuf Bourguignon (see chapter 29),
using the same slow-cooking method and rich flavor profile. Usually,
boiled potatoes will accompany the stew.
Langue Lucullus de Valenciennes or
Langue de Bœuf Lucullus -
A terrine of smoked beef tongue (that gives it a rosy
color) with thin slices interleaved with foie
gras. It's traditionally served
chilled in slices with a sweet accompaniment like an onion confit or fig jam,
along with toasted brioche and a glass of dry white wine.
The Roman general Lucullus
inspired the name through his fame for lavish banquets.
Valenciennes
is a city in the region of Hauts-de-France and has a population of around
40,000, and a metro population of over 340,000. It is just 44 km (27 miles)
from the regional capital of Lille.
In the 1930s the creator of this dish was Edmond
Landouar in his Valenciennes restaurant, Le Verdonck. Today the
dish will be on many local Christmas and New Year's menus in the region and is
usually served as a cold French entrée, the starter.
Langue de Veau Sauce Ravigote
- Veal tongue served with sauce ravigote. Sauce
ravigote can be served hot or cold with slightly different recipes, so if the
menu isn't clear, be sure to ask.
Sauce Ravigote
(cold) - A thick vinaigrette
sauce served with fish, shellfish, poultry, and meat dishes. The ingredients
include mustard, eggs, olive oil, shallots,
spring onions, chives, parsley, capers,
cornichons,
tarragon
and chervil.
This version is often served with cold meats, fish, or tongue.
Sauce Ravigote
(warm) - A lightly thickened sauce, sometimes based on a velouté
or stock reduction, enriched with similar herbs to the cold version. This
version is more common with hot dishes.
-------------
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------------------------
Connected Posts:
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Garlic. Garlic in French Cuisine.
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English.
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and Sauces on French Menus.
Vinegar,
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Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com
Copyright 2010, 2025.
