Rognons
- Kidneys on French menus
from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
Rognons de Veau en Sauce aux Baies de Genièvre
Kidneys, rognons, are French restaurant favorites.
The delicate taste and
pleasant texture of rognons put them on menus all over France.
Lamb and veal kidneys, like sweetbreads, require little specialized
cooking, and they will be on menus from corner bistros to Michelin-starred
restaurants.
The stronger-tasting beef, goat, and pig’s kidneys will not be on the menu in the city, but in country restaurants, they will be prepared as traditional slow-cooked stews or as part of a meat pie. Beef kidneys may be seen on traditional UK menus as part of that great British dish, steak and kidney pie.
A
British Steak and Kidney Pie.
Photograph courtesy of Paul Townsend
www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/39553993114/
Historically, internal
organs in the USA and the UK were the cheaper cuts. As the standard of living
rose, outside France, internal organ dishes became associated with low-income
groups. In France, it is the taste that counts, and the tasty veal and
lamb kidneys and other cuts have remained on the menus in restaurants from the bistro
on the corner to restaurants with Michelin stars. You cannot do to badly if you
follow the French; they eat very well and they cook very well.
Kidneys on French menus:
Fricassée de Rognons de Veau aux Pleurotes - A veal kidney stew with oyster
mushrooms.
Fricassées: A cooking
technique somewhere between a sauté and a stew where the ingredients are not
browned. Fricassées produce tender meat in a rich, creamy, often white
sauce. The original fricassées were only made with chicken; their
popularity led to fricassées being made with veal, other poultry, kidneys, or
shellfish, and occasionally lamb or rabbit. When following the
original recipe and avoiding browning, white wine is used, and crème
fraîche
may be added at the end. Vegetables may be included in the stew, or, like
oyster mushrooms, added shortly before serving.
Pleurotes: Oyster mushrooms.
The oyster mushroom is very popular and at least five members of the
family are cultivated in France, and will be on many menus. These family
members come in at least five colors, making them popular not only for their
taste but also for their looks.
The different strains of these mushrooms vary in
texture from very soft to very chewy. Their association with oysters comes from
the looks of several family members and not from any oyster taste or
texture. In the kitchen, oyster mushrooms are usually added at the last
stage of cooking as they cook quickly and, if left, may cook down to virtually
nothing; for that reason, they are often used in combination with other
mushrooms. Oyster mushrooms cooked for longer will be part of a sauce.
La Cocotte de Rognons de Veau à
la Bordelaise, Petits Oignons,
Lardons et Champignons - A casserole of veal
kidneys prepared in the manner of Bordeaux,
accompanied by baby onions, lardons, bacon
pieces, and button mushrooms.
The wine used in this dish will obviously be a Bordeaux red.
à la Bordelaise:
In the manner of Bordeaux. The city of Bordeaux flourished alongside the
reputation of its wines. So expect many (but not all) of the dishes à la
Bordelaise to include Bordeaux wines as this one does.
Lardons -
Small cubes of fatty bacon and very much a French kitchen essential. Lardons
may be salted or smoked, depending on the taste required and will be used to
flavor many different dishes. Lardons can be stuffed inside a roast chicken,
added to a stew for flavor, fried until crispy, and added cold to a salad.
Bordeaux.
A pivotal moment arrived in 1152 when Eléonore of
Aquitaine, the former Queen of France, married Prince Henry Plantagenet of
England. By 1154, the two were King and Queen of England and lay claim to
nearly half of France, setting the stage for hundreds of years of
French-English wars. Nevertheless, for the next three centuries,
Bordeaux's significance soared, primarily due to its thriving wine trade with
England, where consumption far outstripped that of France. Now the wines
labeled Bordeaux AOP represent 25% of all of France's AOP wines, and the
beautiful old city of Bordeaux is second only to Paris in the number of
heritage buildings.
Experts attribute the region's great wines to the
immense diversity and quality to the region's varied soil and numerous
micro-climates, which allow for the creation of exceptional and distinct wines
within relatively small areas. The wines of Bordeaux have always been looked up
to by vintners globally; even the shape of the Bordeaux wine bottles is used in
every wine-growing region in the world.
Visiting
Bordeaux's Châteaux and Buying Wine
With over 6,000 different Châteaux in Bordeaux, quite
a number may be visited, and the local Tourist Information Office will happily
provide details. When it comes to purchasing wine, an up-to-date pocket or
digital wine guide or the advice of a true expert is essential in choosing
vintages and châteaux; an attractive label is simply not enough! Be wary of
low-priced four-year-old or older Bordeaux wines in French supermarkets or wine
shops. Just as there are no free lunches, there are no cheap and good old
Bordeaux wines. The professionals and knowledgeable locals will have snapped up
all the bargains long before you or I arrive.
Chateau Lafite
Rothschild 2001
Photograph
courtesy of @ccfoodtravel
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cumidanciki/5943331080/
Choosing
among Bordeaux's Appellations
The Bordeaux vineyards boast, I believe, 57 different
AOP appellations, meaning 57 distinct wines. Thankfully, restaurant wine lists
don't overwhelm you with 57 separate sections for Bordeaux wines along with
their 6,000 chateaux. Instead, they typically group Bordeaux wines based on
their growing regions, wine types, and, of course, the restaurant's current
stock. If you are lucky a good wine list may offer 22 different red
Bordeaux wines; and if you are unlucky, you won’t know any names of the
chateaux or the good years that fit your budget. That’s why you need that pocket wine guide.
Rognons de Veau de
Lait, Champignons et Oignons, Sauce Dijonnaise,
Légumes, Frites – Kidneys from milk-fed
veal prepared with button mushrooms and onions served
with a Dijon flavored mustard sauce and accompanied by French fries.
Sauce Dijonnaise:
A Dijon mustard accented sauce. The
earliest cookbook authors with published recipes for mustard were the Greeks
and the Romans. They have left us recipes, including some that are not too
different from those we use today; the Romans also gave us the name mustard.
The Romans mixed newly pressed grape juice, called mustum, with spices
that included mustard seeds to make mustard. This hot sauce was called mustum
ardens, mustarden for short, and from mustarden came the French word
word moutarde and the English word mustard. (Still today, in English, freshly
pressed grape juice is called must).
Dijon
Mustard
When, in 52 BCE and later, the Romans colonized
France, they already knew they had to bring all the requirements for a Rome
away from Rome. More trees, plants, vegetables, amphitheaters, and sauces, etc.
The Romans brought mustard seeds to Burgundy and Dijon
was strategically located along their major trade routes. By the Middle Ages,
yellow mustard plants covered the fields outside Dijon from April through June.
Today, Dijon is a city with over 150,000
inhabitants. Nevertheless, if you are
visiting, you will not notice its size.
The center of the town is walkable, and the center still has many houses
from the Middle Ages. In 1937 Moutarde
de Dijon was granted an AOC, which protects the way and the place where the
mustard is made. However Dijon mustard
in no longer made in the city in commercial quantities, the manufacturers moved
to places where the land was cheaper. Also,
to my surprise, I discovered that over 90% of all brown mustard seeds used in
French mustards are imported from Canada, how the world turns?
Rognonnade de Veau
aux Champignons, Sauce Madère – A veal loin chop with
part of the kidneys attached, prepared with button mushrooms and served
with a Madeira wine sauce.
Rognonnade:
A traditional French kidney dish where the veal kidneys are served together
with part of a veal steak. In the USA, I was told this is called a kidney
chop, but as far as I have seen, it doesn't make today's steakhouse menus.
Madeira:
A smooth, fragrant, and opulent fortified wine with an alcohol content of
between 18 and 21 percent. The wine comes from the Portuguese Madeira Islands
in the North Atlantic.
Fortified wines are made by adding an eau-de-vie,
a young grape alcohol, to the wine in the barrels, thereby ending the
fermentation before it is naturally completed. This process controls the amount
of alcohol in the wine and the level of sweetness.
Verdelho, a white wine Madeira grape,
makes a golden, semi-dry wine, and in France, this wine and the slightly
sweeter Bual Madeira wine are the Madeira wines most chefs choose for
Sauce Madeira.
Rognonnade de Veau aux Legumes Nouveaux
Veal kidney chop (the kidney and part of the loin) and
early vegetables.
Photograph and recipe courtesy of Recettesmania.
Rognons d'Agneau, Grillés au Bacon, Gratin
Dauphinois et Légumes de Provence – Lamb kidneys grilled with bacon and served with Gratin Dauphinois.
Gratin Dauphinois
– Baked, sliced potatoes cooked in milk and cream, flavored with nutmeg,
garlic, thyme, and shallots, and then browned under the grill, typically with
Gruyere or Parmesan cheese. On French menus, the names Dauphiné or Dauphinois
indicate recipes, mostly relatively modern, from the area of the ancient and
quasi-independent principality called Dauphiné (in the Southeast of modern
France). There, historically, the ruling Counts, under the banner of the
Holy Roman Empire, ruled using the title Dauphiné. At the end of
the 14th century, the Dauphins sold their land and titles to the French King,
with the title Dauphiné becoming the title of the King’s eldest son.
Légumes de Provence:
Vegetables from Provence. On a menu listing, this indicates that the produce is
locally sourced. It will not be referring to a particular vegetable, though
Provence is blessed with courgettes, zucchinis, aubergines, eggplants,
tomatoes, garlic and much more.
Lamb’s kidneys à la
Bordelaise
Photograph
courtesy of stu_spivack
www.flickr.com/photos/stuart_spivack/1402327961/
Rognons Blancs
Restaurants in the country may offer Rognons Blancs - These are not kidneys, these are the French names for animal testicles. On country menus there may be Rognons Blancs au Riesling – Lamb’s testicles prepared in Riesling wine from the Alsace in the region of the Grand Est. Rocky Mountain Oysters is one of the names used for these cuts in parts of the USA.
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Behind
the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com
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