from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com
Thyme.
Photograph
courtesy of Jean Weber.
www.flickr.com/photos/inra_dist/23651140316/
Thym, Thym Vert, Serpolet, or Farigoule and Thym Citron – Thyme, the herb. Thyme will be on French menus, in recipes, in herb groups, as part of a bouquet garni using cultivated thyme or wild thyme. Most cultivated varieties of thyme will be on French menus as thym or thym vert. Wild thyme will be on French menus as serpolet and in the south of France as farigoule in the Occitan language.
The southern French name for wild thyme, farigoule, comes from the Occitan language. Occitan is the source of the original language of much of Provence and Occitanie and some other regions of France. Provençal and Niçoise are among the many languages and dialects that developed from Occitan.
Wild thyme.
Photograph
courtesy of Jean-Marie Van der Maren
www.flickr.com/photos/jmvdmaren/19696102332/
Thyme is absolutely essential to French cuisine and much preferred when fresh. Thyme will be flavoring sauces and soups, fish and poultry, lamb, veal, fish, and, of course, herbal butter and bouquets garni. Thyme is one of the ingredients of the most important French Herb Group, Les Fine Herbes. The juices of certain herbs, including thyme, are used when their taste is wanted but not the texture. The juices pressed from thyme are often part of a recipe and noted on a menu as jus de thyme or made into a thyme-accented sauce.
Thyme
Photograph courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage
Library
Paris: Imprimerie de
C.L.F. Panckoucke,1833-1835.
biodiversitylibrary.org/page/41877917
www.flickr.com/photos/biodivlibrary/50087534642/
Thym Citron - Lemon thyme.
Lemon thyme looks similar to garden or cultivated thyme, but its leaves have a strong lemon scent, accompanied by a lemon flavor. Read the menu carefully if you are expecting thyme or you may end up with a very enjoyable but unexpected lemon accented dish. In the French kitchen, lemon thyme will be added to dishes that want that lemon accent, especially fish dishes and desserts.
Lemon Thyme
Thyme
on French menus:
Carpaccio de Thon à l'Huile de Farigoule – A Carpaccio of fresh tuna marinated in the oil of wild thyme.
Roast chicken and potatoes with lemon thyme.www.flickr.com/photos/lizadaly/506812284/
Côte
de Veau Sauce Thym – A veal chop
with a thyme sauce. France offers the best veal in Europe, so enjoy.
Filets de Rouget au Thym
– Filet of red mullet
cooked with fresh thyme.
Filet
Mignon de Cochon Miel
de Thym, Risotto aux Agrumes, Navets Glacés
à l’Orange – A
cut of pork fillet, a pig’s tenderloin,
cooked with thyme honey and
served with a risotto made with citrus fruits, and glazed turnips flavored
with orange.
Thyme honey comes
from the bees that pollinate the wild thyme that grows all over the south of
France and much of Corsica.
N.B.: When you see the word
filet mignon on a French menu it will nearly always be an indication that the
cut comes from a pork fillet. For French beef, the cuts from the end or
narrowest part of the filet will be called a filet de boeuf, a beef fillet.
From the thickest part of a
beef fillet come the tornados, Chateaubriand and
the cœur
de filet.
Pain de campagne, figues, fromage de chèvre frais,
thym.Open toasted sandwiches made with:
La Cuisse de Canard
Confite
a la Fleur de Serpolet – A duck’s
leg confit
flavored with wild thyme flowers. In the original confits, the duck’s legs would have
been cooked and then kept in a covering of the natural fat produced while
cooking. Then, in a cool place,
the duck’s legs could be kept through the winter. Today, a confit of duck or other meats indicates that it will have been cooked very until it
tender enough to eat with a fork alone. That slow cooking allows the flavors to come through, and the meat will almost melt on your
tongue.
Pièce
de Veau aux Légumes de Saison, Jus
au Thym - A cut of veal, probably a veal
cutlet, served with the season’s vegetables and the veal’s natural
cooking juices flavored with thyme.
Filet
de Sandre
Roti, Beurre
Blanc au Thym-Citron - Roasted
pike-perch/zander, the
fish, served with a white
butter sauce flavored with the lemon lime
herb.
Suprême de Volaille Roti,
Pomme de Terre, Carotte, Jus
au Thym -
Roast chicken breast served with potatoes and carrots, flavored with the juice pressed
from thyme.
L'Agneau de Lait en Côtelettes
à la Fleur de Thym
Cutlets of milk-fed lamb flavored with thyme flowers.
L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon:
Photograph courtesy
of s-velasco.
www.flickr.com/photos/svelasco/9327971129/
Vinaigrette au Thym – A vinaigrette sauce flavored with thyme. The vinaigrette used here will be made with one of France’s many excellent olive oils with a wine vinegar.
Where
thyme grows in France.
The wild thyme grows wild in warm climates and originated in southern Europe. Most of the wild thyme in France comes from the Garrigues in Ocitanie and the Maquis in Provence and Corsica. On these, stony, windy, practically treeless, hills wild thyme will be decorating the countryside all year round, as wild thyme is an evergreen shrub. Corsica is uniquely famous for its six AOP kinds of honey. Two of those honeys come from bees that collect a large part of their pollen from herbs, especially the wild thyme that grows in the Corsican Maquis.
Thyme honey.
Photograph courtesy of Jean
Weber
www.flickr.com/photos/inra_dist/25067410464/
Dried thyme is available, but no French chef will choose it over fresh thyme, whether wild or cultivated. Thyme is one of the few herbs with a more robust flavor when dried and can be too strong. In the north of France, market gardeners will be supplying local restaurants with cultivated thyme and cultivated wild thyme fresh from their greenhouses in winter.
The importance of thyme in French cuisine
Thyme is nearly always part of a bouquet garni and absolutely always included in the herb groups the Fine Herbes and the Herbes de Provence. That puts thyme among the six most important herbs in French cuisine!
How to prepare a
boquet garni.
Photograph
and video courtesy of Femme Actuelle.
Thyme tisanes, teas, in France, and thyme in homeopathic medicines.
Homeopathic
pharmacies, in France, with their distinctive green cross or green storefront signs are nearly as conspicuous as regular pharmacies.
Thyme oil is an essential oil with antiseptic properties and thyme tisanes or
infusions, teas, are recommended for easing the effects of cold, flu and
digestive troubles.
Fresh
thyme in the languages of France’s neighbors:
(Catalan - farigola), (Dutch – tijm), (German – tymian), (Italian – timo), (Spanish – tomillo), (Latin - thymus vulgaris).
Wild
thyme in the languages of France’s neighbors:
(Catalan - Serpoll), ( Dutch - wilde tijm), (German - quendel, feldthymian), (Italian – serpillo), (Spanish – serpoleto), (Latin - thymus serpyllum).
----------
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com
Copyright 2010, 2015,
2021 -------------------------------- Searching for the
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