from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
The Atlantic Salmon
Saumon – Salmon.
The only salmon that calls Europe its real home is the Atlantic Salmon, and it is France's best-selling fish, just ahead of cod. It will be on the menu marinated,
fried, poached, grilled and smoked. Salmon is also number two in the fish
restaurant popularity stakes just after fresh cod.
The Atlantic Salmon's French names include: Saumon; Saumon Atlantique;
Tacon Atlantique; Saumon Baltic; Saumon Écossais; Saumon Norvégien
or Saumon Sauvage.
In English the names for the Atlantic
Salmon include: Salmon,
Atlantic Salmon, Black Salmon, Baltic Salmon Sea Salmon, Silver salmon,
Irish Salmon, Scotch Salmon, Norwegian Salmon and Wild Salmon.
Atlantic Salmon on
French menus:
Carpaccio de Saumon, (Huile d'Olive, Toasts) – Salmon Carpaccio flavored
with olive
oil and served with toast on the side.
Carpaccio de Saumon
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Dos de Saumon en Croute d'Herbes, Sauce Paloise - A thick cut from the back of the salmon, baked in a
crust of herbs, and served with a Sauce Paloise. a granddaughter, or
perhaps a grandson of one of France’s mother sauces, Sauce
Hollandaise.
Grilled salmon with teriyaki sauce.
www.flickr.com/photos/prayitnophotography/16802375986/
Hure de Saumon – Translated without
any good reason as salmon head cheese,
or the nearly as bad, salmon pate
since this dish is neither. Hure de
saumon is a fillet of salmon and parsley; steamed or braised and then prepared
for display with a gelatin coating, nothing to do with a salmon’s head, any
type of cheese or pate. A hure de saumon
will be served cold with fresh mayonnaise and is often part of a buffet
offering.
Millefeuille de Saumon Fumé, Sorbet Citron Vert – Layers of smoked salmon interleaved with a
vegetable and served with a lime sorbet. With salmon, in season, the vegetable
that makes the millefeuille in this dish will often be thin slices of avocado.
Pavé de Saumon Norvégien à la Provençale – A thick cut of Norwegian farm-raised Atlantic salmon prepared
with a traditional Provençale recipe. The dish will include lots of tomatoes,
and the Provençale flavor will be coming from the herb group called the Herbes
de Provence, along with shallots
and a small amount of garlic, local black olives
and parsley.
Additions such as cream or crème
fraiche and white wine are at the chef’s discretion; however, they were not
part of the traditional recipe.
A thick cut of
salmon with a dill
sauce.
Carpaccio de Saumon
Saumoneau de Fontaine Sauce Suprème aux Cèpes - Young salmon (smolt) from the river served with a sauce supreme
and cepes,
the French porcinin mushrooms. Sauce Supreme is a white sauce made with
veal or chicken stock, butter and crème fraiche; here the stock may be a fumet,
a fish stock.
Saumon Ecossaise Label Rouge
Farmed Scottish salmon holding the French
red label for consistent quality and concerned animal husbandry.
Scottish farmed salmon was the first
non-French product to be awarded the French Label Rouge, red label. The
Scottish Label Rouge salmon also comes with the British RSPCA label of Freedom
food. The RSPCA, Freedom Food Rating is
the highest standard for farmed-fish in the world. The RSPCA inspects
cleanliness, type of food, prevents overcrowding and ensures the absolute
minimum of discomfort when the fish are brought in.
This Scottish salmon is so flavorful, and
is farmed under such uniquely clean and controlled conditions that only five Scottish
salmon farms have so been awarded the French red label of excellence.
Filet de Saumon Écossais Label Rouge à l'Unilatérale, Pommes
Sautées au Persil – A filet of Scottish label rouge salmon lightly fried through from
the skin side of the filet, and served with boiled potatoes flavored with parsley.
Cooking fish à l'unilatérale is considered the best way to fry a filet of fish;
by cooking only on the skin side of the filet the flavor of the fish is not
affected by the cooking oil as it would be if cooked on both sides.
Two different tastes and textures that go
so well together
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Many French chefs smoke their own salmon. When you see, on a French menu, Fumé Maison,
home smoked, then the chef is in charge of the smoking; that will be smoked salmon made with love; it
will not have been bought at from a restaurant wholesaler or supermarket!
Salade d’Asperges
Vertes, Saumon Fumé et Son Œuf Poché – A salad of green
asparagus served with smoked salmon and a poached egg.
Saumon Fumé Maison et Ses Toasts – Home smoked salmon served with warm toast.
Saumon Cru or Saumon
Mariné
Marinated salmon or cured salmon.
Cured salmon is sometimes mistranslated
as raw; sashimi is raw, saumon cru is not, it has been marinated. I have had
fabulous meals that included marinated salmon; twice, once in Paris, and once
in Lyon I enjoyed the nearest thing to the “absolute” saumon mariné.
Saumon Mariné à l'Aneth
– Salmon marinated in dill. Dill
is the most popular herb, in France, for marinating salmon, and the dill is
applied with a light touch. The result may be some of the best marinated salmon
you will ever encounter. When saumon mariné à l'aneth is on the menu do not
pass it by.
Marinated salmon
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Saumon Mariné au Citron
Vert et Aneth
- Salmon marinated in lime
juice and dill.
When thinly sliced I think that French marinated salmon is the only salmon that
comes close to the texture of the very best and thinly sliced smoked salmon.
Salmon Marine au Thym
–Salmon marinated with thyme.
Saumon Gravlax, Gravadlax or Gravad Lax
Gravlax is a dish of Scandinavian origin;
it is the Scandinavian take on marinated salmon and it preceded the French
recipe. Gravlax has a different texture and taste and is very popular in France.
Gravlax is made with whole filets of salmon, cured in a nearly, but not quite,
freezing, mixture of salt, sugar, pepper and dill; it is served thinly sliced though not as thin as the French marinated salmon.
Gravlax
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During
a visit to Sweden I was told that the name gravlax comes from the
Swedish be-grava meaning “to bury” and the word lax, of course, means “salmon.” The name indicates that the recipe preceded
refrigerators when it would have been wild, not farmed salmon that was buried and marinated under the snow for two or three days during the long winter. With snow expected nine months a year in many
parts of Sweden that was probably close to the home, almost certainly close to
the kitchen door.
Saumon Sauvage de l'Adour Mariné Façon Gravlax, Tomates
Confites,
Câpres
et Fleur
d'ail - Wild salmon from the Adour River,
prepared as Gravlax and served with a
thick jam, a confit, of tomatoes
and flavored with capers
and garlic
flowers. The Adour is one of
France’s shorter rivers; the river rises in the Pyrenees and flows in an arc
for nearly 330 km before reaching the sea below the city of Bayonne. Despite
the Ardour's short length, it is famous for its wild salmon; here, you will be
enjoying wild salmon, and since fish are undeniably very much what they eat; the difference in texture and taste to farmed salmon will be evident.
Tartare
– The Tatars; the tribes who, under
Genghis Khan overran much of Asia and parts of Europe. In the French kitchen,
the Tartars are now best remembered for the beef dish created by a French chef
in their memory: Steak Tartare, Steak Tartar. Following on that success,
another French chef begat Tartare de Saumon, salmon Tartar; that was followed
by another chef who begat Tartare de Tomates, tomato Tartar. From then on, like the real Tartars, there
was no stopping them; one after other chefs begat and begot numerous new
creations all named after the Tartars.
Tartare
de Saumon - Salmon tartar. Diced, marinated, fresh
uncooked salmon prepared together with diced onions, chives,
eggs,
capers,
parsley,
olive
oil, pepper, and lemon juice. Tartare de Saumon will be served as an
entrée, the French first course.
Tartare de Saumon et Pétoncles
– Salmon and queen-scallop
(queenies) Tartar; prepared in the same manner as the Salmon Tartar dish above.
Tartare de saumon
pamplemousse
Salmon and
grapefruit Tatar.
Tartare de Saumon Baltic Fumé à l'Aneth
et au Citron
Vert –
Baltic salmon, smoked with dill
and flavored with lime. The usage of the name Baltic salmon is just
menuise (the language of menus) as the Baltic salmon is the same fish as the
Atlantic Salmon. The fish offered here came from a Baltic Sea salmon-farm, and so
they will not be too different to Norwegian farmed salmon as they will be fed
the same food. Despite my caveat, there are the wild salmon that inhabit the
Baltic sea, rivers and fiords of the countries around the sea. The brackish
water of the Baltic provides different foods supplies for the wild salmon who
live there, and that certainly provides a different taste. The Baltic sea does
connect to the North Sea and so from there into the Atlantic. Look at the Baltic Sea is virtually
surrounded by Sweden, Finland, the Danish Islands, Germany, Poland, Lithuania,
Estonia, Latvia, and Russia.
France is home to many excellent Japanese
restaurants including those with Michelin stars. You may enjoy salmon sushi,
sashimi and more all over France; apart from many excellent Japanese
restaurants, you will find French chefs who have adopted Japanese recipes to
French cuisine. Whatever the method of preparation you will rarely be
disappointed when ordering salmon in France.
Over 98% of salmon on sale in French
fish-markets and on restaurant menus will be the Atlantic salmon; it will have
been farm-raised in Norway, Ireland, Scotland and a few other European countries.
The other 2% of Atlantic Salmon will be saumon sauvage, wild Atlantic salmon,
from the Atlantic or the North Sea, Scottish rivers or France’s own rivers. A
small amount of wild salmon, mostly saumon rouge, sockeye salmon, also called
red salmon, is imported, frozen, from North America. I have heard that some saumon rose, humpback
salmon may come from Russia or the North of Sweden to which it has
migrated. If the humpack salmon migrate
any further south we may see this member of the salmon family claiming a
European Union passport
Lunchtime
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The Atlantic Salmon in the languages of
France’s neighbors:
(Dutch – zalm), (German – Atlantischer
lachs, lachs), (Italian –salmone atlantico), (Spanish – salmón), (Latin -
salmo salar).
Below are the French names for other
salmon species; many countries have excellent French restaurants and excellent French chefs, and they may be serving a salmon other than
Atlantic salmon.
Saumon Argenté or
Saumon Coho - Coho salmon.
(Latin - oncorhynchus
kisutch).
Saumon Chinook or
Saumon Royale – Chinook or King salmon.
(Latin - oncorhynchus
tshawytscha).
Saumon Keta or Saumon du Pacifique - Chum Salmon or Keta
salmon.
(Latin - oncorhynchus
keta)
Saumon Rose or
Saumon Rose à Bosse – Pink salmon or Humpback salmon.
(Latin - oncorhynchus
gorbuscha).
Saumon Rouge - Sockeye
salmon or Red salmon.
(Latin - oncorhynchus
nerka).
Saumon de Fontaine – This is not a
salmon; rather this is the
brook trout, a tasty member of the trout/salmon family. These are fresh
water fish and an excellent menu choice; however, they are not salmon.
------------------------------------------
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
Copyright 2010, 2013, 2019
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