fromBehind the French Menuby
Bryan
G. Newman
Oxtail soupPhotograph courtesy
of Hajime NAKANO
The
first recipes for oxtail soups and stews arrived in England with the
Norman-French cooks who served William the Conqueror, his barons and his
soldiers. The year was 1066, and William had invaded England to claim the
throne based on some indirect promises; he defeated the English King Harold,
who was the last of the Anglo-Saxon kings. William was crowned King of
England.
Oxtail
dishes were known to the French as hochepots, although this term
also included vegetarian adaptations. Many of William's soldiers came
from the old province of Flanders in northern France, where hochepot was, and
still is, a popular dish. Today, most of Flanders is within the French department
of Nord, with its coast reaching the English Channel (La Manche) and the North
Sea
to
the west. To the north, the department
of Nord borders Belgium.
Oxtail
soups and stews, with their tender, slowly cooked meat flavored by its rich
bone marrow, has a soft, silky texture that you can feel on your tongue. These dishes quickly became traditional
British and Irish favorites. With this and many other dishes, the cooks
of William's army brought the French connection to the English
kitchen.
(BTW, William the Conqueror is a great-great-great…of the present king of
England).
(Later
on, the word "hochepot" became "hodge-podge" in English in
the 15th century, and Longman's Dictionary gives one of the word's meanings as
"a lot of things mixed up together in no order." Obviously,
that was one of the original recipes).
A
hodge-podge, a mixture of odds and endsPhotograph
courtesy of Simon Law
Until
about fifty years ago, oxtail soups and stews in the UK were considered too
bourgeois for most restaurant menus. Then, celebrity chefs rediscovered
the tastes locked into these traditional dishes, and they may now appear on the
menu in the finest restaurants.
An
ox is a castrated male and, also called a bullock or steer in North America;
however, be aware that in nearly all the recipes cows' tails are used just
as often as an ox's tail. Additionally, in North America and the UK, there are
many stews with similar-sounding names to hochpote and hodge-podge, including
some vegetarian versions.
The
Queue de Bœuf, oxtail, on French Menus:
Chiffonade de Queue de
Bœuf, Vinaigrette à la Moutarde à l'Ancienne – Strips of beef
from the oxtail served with a vinaigrette sauce flavored with a coarse-grained,
mild mustard sauce.
Chiffonade: The
word "chiffonade" in your French-English dictionary may be translated
as "rags," but on your menu, it will indicate thin strips of
vegetables lightly sautéed or, as here, thin strips of meat. Strips of
smoked salmon, cured hams, or other finely cut fish or meats may also be served
as a "chiffonade."
Moutarde
à l'Ancienne translates to 'mustard in the old manner,' and it is
made by soaking mustard seeds in water for a few days, then lightly crushing
them to retain a grainy texture.
Hochepot de Queue de
Bœuf –
This is a slow-cooked, hearty stew made with vegetables, typically
including carrots, turnips, and onions, and is a traditional
oxtail stew prepared in the style of a Pot-au-feu.
Oxtail
soup
Photograph
courtesy of Dion Hinchcliffe
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dionhinchcliffe/5440344228/
Parmentier de Queue de
Bœuf au Vin Rouge de Touraine – Oxtail flavored with a red wine from
the Touraine and served covered with mashed potatoes. The French
pharmacist Antoine-Augustin Parmentier (1737–1813), who
made the potato a staple part of the French diet, is honored with his name on
this and many other potato dishes.
The
Touraine is a historical, cultural, and agricultural region, as well
as an ancient French province, It is located in the department of
Indre-et-Loire in the center of the Val de Loire wine region and is home to
many fine wines and cheeses, including the Chinon and Vouvray wines, and
the Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine AOP goats' cheese.
The Château de Chenonceau in Indre-et-Loire is
the second most visited château in France, after Château de Versailles.
Préssé de Queue de
Bœuf et Salade – In this dish
the meat from the oxtail is interleaved with vegetables and pressed into a
square or rectangular form from which it will be served. On this menu listing,
it is accompanied by a salad.
Raviolis de Queue de
Bœuf –
Ravioli made with the tender meat of an oxtail. Typically this dish is served
with a meat and red wine sauce.
Soupe de Queue de Bœuf – Oxtail soup.
Salade de Mesclun et
Terrine de Queue de Boeuf Maison – A mesclun salad served with the
restaurant's special oxtail meat pâté.
The terrine here is
a pâté that will have
been made with vegetables and possibly other meats.
The ingredients of the salade mesclun will change with the
season, but will typically include five or six salad greens chosen for their
contrasting tastes and textures.
A
salade mesclun.Photograph
courtesy of Ray
From
1066, when William the Conqueror took the throne, England had a French-speaking
court and aristocracy. From William until King Henry IV (1399–1413),
there were 11 English kings and none of them spoke a word of English and that
included Richard I, Richard the Lion-Heart. All these kings had Norman-French
as their native language. Henry IV is considered the first English king
to have taken the oath in the English language, and his son, Henry V, was the
first to write in the English language. (Henry V spoke middle-English which had
a great deal of French mixed in).
The conjoined letters Πin French:
Since I began writing
about French cuisine, I've had quite a number of questions about the
conjoined letters Œ in bœuf (beef), and œufs
(eggs). How are they pronounced and typed? Here, I am taking the opportunity to
explain the sound of Πand how it is typed on a Windows QUERTY
keyboard.
ΠРThe two
letters O and E linked together have a
history much longer than the few French grammar lessons that I bothered to
participate in in school. You can, as usual, blame the Romans and Greeks
for this strange letter or ligature, as it is properly called. When
the letters are separate, they have their individual sounds in French. In
English, we mostly hear the letters O and E sounded
separately, as in phone and alone for O and
she and Peter for E. There are,
of course, many other sounds for O and E when combined with other vowels in English.
However, in French, when linked together as Œ they form the sound, er. So bœuf for beef, is pronounced berf and œuf for
egg is pronounced erf.
What I learned when
trying to type the letter Œ
To type œ in
lowercase on a PC keyboard, hold down the "Alt" key and type
0156, and the lowercase œ will appear. For the
uppercaseΠ, type Alt and 0140.
N.B. From experience,
I also learned that the typed letters only appear when you take your finger off
the Alt key. Also, ensure the Num Lock is off before typing; otherwise,
in a similar manner, nothing will appear.
Alt
0156…. Voila œ
Alt
0140…..Voila Œ
To
type "œ" on a Mac
Hold down the Option
key and press the q key, then release both keys. If you need
the uppercase Œ, hold down the Shift and Option keys and
press the q key.
-----------------------------------
Behind
the French Menu
by
Bryan
G. Newman
Copyright
2010, 2019, 2023, 2025.
Connected
Posts:
Carottes –
Carrots; in French
Cuisine.
Moutarde –
Mustard. Mustard (Including Dijon Mustard)
in French cuisine.
Oignon or Ognon – An Onion. Onions on French
menus. France's most famous onions and their history.
Parmentier - The Man Who Brought the Potato to
French Menus.
Pâtés and
Terrines. An introduction to the meat, fish,
vegetable and fruit pâtés on French menus.
Pot-au-Feu or Pot
Bouilli – Pot on the Fire - France's Most
Famous Stew.
Sainte-Maure de Touraine AOP -The Sainte-Maure de Touraine
Cheese. One of France's
Finest Goat's milk cheeses.
Salade Mesclun – Salad Mesclun in French Cuisine.
Navets (Turnips),
Panais (Parsnips), and Chou-Navets
or Rutabaga (Swedes) are traditional root
vegetables but also very much part of modern French cuisine.
Vinegar,
Vinaigrette and Verjus in French Cuisine.
Searching
for the meaning of words, names or phrases
on
French
menus?
Just
add the word, words, or phrase you are searching for to the phrase "Behind
the French Menu" enclosed in inverted commas (quotation marks) and
search using Google, Bing, or another search engine. Behind the French
Menu's links include hundreds of words, names, and phrases commonly seen on
French menus. There are over 450 posts featuring more than 4,000 French dishes,
all accompanied by English translations and explanations.
The
first recipes for oxtail soups and stews arrived in England with the
Norman-French cooks who served William the Conqueror, his barons and his
soldiers. The year was 1066, and William had invaded England to claim the
throne based on some indirect promises; he defeated the English King Harold,
who was the last of the Anglo-Saxon kings. William was crowned King of
England.
Oxtail
dishes were known to the French as hochepots, although this term
also included vegetarian adaptations. Many of William's soldiers came
from the old province of Flanders in northern France, where hochepot was, and
still is, a popular dish. Today, most of Flanders is within the French department
of Nord, with its coast reaching the English Channel (La Manche) and the North
Sea
to
the west. To the north, the department
of Nord borders Belgium.
Oxtail
soups and stews, with their tender, slowly cooked meat flavored by its rich
bone marrow, has a soft, silky texture that you can feel on your tongue. These dishes quickly became traditional
British and Irish favorites. With this and many other dishes, the cooks
of William's army brought the French connection to the English
kitchen.
(BTW, William the Conqueror is a great-great-great…of the present king of
England).
(Later
on, the word "hochepot" became "hodge-podge" in English in
the 15th century, and Longman's Dictionary gives one of the word's meanings as
"a lot of things mixed up together in no order." Obviously,
that was one of the original recipes).
Until
about fifty years ago, oxtail soups and stews in the UK were considered too
bourgeois for most restaurant menus. Then, celebrity chefs rediscovered
the tastes locked into these traditional dishes, and they may now appear on the
menu in the finest restaurants.
An
ox is a castrated male and, also called a bullock or steer in North America;
however, be aware that in nearly all the recipes cows' tails are used just
as often as an ox's tail. Additionally, in North America and the UK, there are
many stews with similar-sounding names to hochpote and hodge-podge, including
some vegetarian versions.
The Queue de Bœuf, oxtail, on French Menus:
Chiffonade de Queue de
Bœuf, Vinaigrette à la Moutarde à l'Ancienne – Strips of beef
from the oxtail served with a vinaigrette sauce flavored with a coarse-grained,
mild mustard sauce.
Chiffonade: The
word "chiffonade" in your French-English dictionary may be translated
as "rags," but on your menu, it will indicate thin strips of
vegetables lightly sautéed or, as here, thin strips of meat. Strips of
smoked salmon, cured hams, or other finely cut fish or meats may also be served
as a "chiffonade."
Moutarde
à l'Ancienne translates to 'mustard in the old manner,' and it is
made by soaking mustard seeds in water for a few days, then lightly crushing
them to retain a grainy texture.
Hochepot de Queue de
Bœuf –
This is a slow-cooked, hearty stew made with vegetables, typically
including carrots, turnips, and onions, and is a traditional
oxtail stew prepared in the style of a Pot-au-feu.
Oxtail
soup
Photograph
courtesy of Dion Hinchcliffe
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dionhinchcliffe/5440344228/
Parmentier de Queue de
Bœuf au Vin Rouge de Touraine – Oxtail flavored with a red wine from
the Touraine and served covered with mashed potatoes. The French
pharmacist Antoine-Augustin Parmentier (1737–1813), who
made the potato a staple part of the French diet, is honored with his name on
this and many other potato dishes.
The
Touraine is a historical, cultural, and agricultural region, as well
as an ancient French province, It is located in the department of
Indre-et-Loire in the center of the Val de Loire wine region and is home to
many fine wines and cheeses, including the Chinon and Vouvray wines, and
the Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine AOP goats' cheese.
The Château de Chenonceau in Indre-et-Loire is
the second most visited château in France, after Château de Versailles.
Préssé de Queue de
Bœuf et Salade – In this dish
the meat from the oxtail is interleaved with vegetables and pressed into a
square or rectangular form from which it will be served. On this menu listing,
it is accompanied by a salad.
Raviolis de Queue de
Bœuf –
Ravioli made with the tender meat of an oxtail. Typically this dish is served
with a meat and red wine sauce.
Soupe de Queue de Bœuf – Oxtail soup.
Salade de Mesclun et Terrine de Queue de Boeuf Maison – A mesclun salad served with the restaurant's special oxtail meat pâté.
The terrine here is a pâté that will have been made with vegetables and possibly other meats.
The ingredients of the salade mesclun will change with the
season, but will typically include five or six salad greens chosen for their
contrasting tastes and textures.
From 1066, when William the Conqueror took the throne, England had a French-speaking court and aristocracy. From William until King Henry IV (1399–1413), there were 11 English kings and none of them spoke a word of English and that included Richard I, Richard the Lion-Heart. All these kings had Norman-French as their native language. Henry IV is considered the first English king to have taken the oath in the English language, and his son, Henry V, was the first to write in the English language. (Henry V spoke middle-English which had a great deal of French mixed in).
The conjoined letters Πin French:
Since I began writing
about French cuisine, I've had quite a number of questions about the
conjoined letters Œ in bœuf (beef), and œufs
(eggs). How are they pronounced and typed? Here, I am taking the opportunity to
explain the sound of Πand how it is typed on a Windows QUERTY
keyboard.
ΠРThe two
letters O and E linked together have a
history much longer than the few French grammar lessons that I bothered to
participate in in school. You can, as usual, blame the Romans and Greeks
for this strange letter or ligature, as it is properly called. When
the letters are separate, they have their individual sounds in French. In
English, we mostly hear the letters O and E sounded
separately, as in phone and alone for O and
she and Peter for E. There are,
of course, many other sounds for O and E when combined with other vowels in English.
However, in French, when linked together as Œ they form the sound, er. So bœuf for beef, is pronounced berf and œuf for
egg is pronounced erf.
What I learned when
trying to type the letter Œ
To type œ in lowercase on a PC keyboard, hold down the "Alt" key and type 0156, and the lowercase œ will appear. For the uppercaseŒ , type Alt and 0140.
N.B. From experience,
I also learned that the typed letters only appear when you take your finger off
the Alt key. Also, ensure the Num Lock is off before typing; otherwise,
in a similar manner, nothing will appear.
Alt 0156…. Voila œ
Alt
0140…..Voila Œ
To type "œ" on a Mac
Hold down the Option
key and press the q key, then release both keys. If you need
the uppercase Œ, hold down the Shift and Option keys and
press the q key.
-----------------------------------
Behind
the French Menu
by
Bryan
G. Newman
Copyright
2010, 2019, 2023, 2025.
Connected
Posts:
Carottes –
Carrots; in French
Cuisine.
Moutarde –
Mustard. Mustard (Including Dijon Mustard)
in French cuisine.
Oignon or Ognon – An Onion. Onions on French
menus. France's most famous onions and their history.
Parmentier - The Man Who Brought the Potato to
French Menus.
Pâtés and
Terrines. An introduction to the meat, fish,
vegetable and fruit pâtés on French menus.
Pot-au-Feu or Pot
Bouilli – Pot on the Fire - France's Most
Famous Stew.
Sainte-Maure de Touraine AOP -The Sainte-Maure de Touraine
Cheese. One of France's
Finest Goat's milk cheeses.
Salade Mesclun – Salad Mesclun in French Cuisine.
Navets (Turnips),
Panais (Parsnips), and Chou-Navets
or Rutabaga (Swedes) are traditional root
vegetables but also very much part of modern French cuisine.
Vinegar, Vinaigrette and Verjus in French Cuisine.
Searching
for the meaning of words, names or phrases
on
French
menus?
Just
add the word, words, or phrase you are searching for to the phrase "Behind
the French Menu" enclosed in inverted commas (quotation marks) and
search using Google, Bing, or another search engine. Behind the French
Menu's links include hundreds of words, names, and phrases commonly seen on
French menus. There are over 450 posts featuring more than 4,000 French dishes,
all accompanied by English translations and explanations.
