Behind The French Menu.
Behind the French Menu gives a tasty background to French cuisine, French dishes, how they are made and how they should be served. Where there is a story behind a dish's creation and that story may aid the diner's enjoyment then that will also be included. Bon appétit!
Caille - Quail. Quail on the Menu in France.
Quail and their eggs.
Photograph courtesy of Yay Micro.
Farm-raised quail taste slightly sweeter
than chicken and when simply roasted you will note that slightly sweeter taste.
N.B. Quail is also more easily flavored than chicken and so often that
slightly sweeter taste is lost among the other flavors in the cooking process.
Roast quail for three.
Photograph Yay Micro
A serving of quail, a whole European quail,
will most likely weigh in at less than 150 grams (5.30 ounces) and that’s with the bones; if the quail are smaller you will often be served two.
Quail on the French menu:
Caille à la Stanislas - Quail
in the manner prepared for Stanislas, Duke of Bar and Lorraine, France. In the
original recipe, the quail was deboned, roasted and then served stuffed with
fattened goose liver, foie gras de oie. Caille à la Stanislas is still on some
French menus today; however, the amount of fois gras will be greatly reduced
from the serving in the original dish. That should not be too surprising, given
today's cost of foie gras in France.
Stanislas, before he became a French Duke, was a Polish king who
was fired from that job, twice! Unemployed kings do not usually have good job
prospects. Nevertheless, Stanislas received the title Duke of Lorraine with a
job to go with it from his son-in-law, who was King Louis XV of France.
Stanislas also received a chateau outside the city of Nancy in the Lorraine.
The chateau was not a small one, and it is still known as the Versailles of the
Lorraine. Stanislas's building of three stunning squares in the City of Nancy
would make the city world-famous, and the squares are now UN World Heritage sites.
Despite Stanislas's great works and (for the times) progressive rule, he is
best remembered as the man who gave the name to the dessert Rhum Baba. Rhum Baba or Rum Baba and other dishes that were first
served in Stanislas's chateau. The Savarin or Savarin au Rhum is based on the
Rhum Baba but named after Jeanne Anthelme Brillat-Savarin who lived over 100
years later.
Fig and quail egg
salad.
Photograph courtesy
of Yay Micro
Caille Rôtie Farcie de Girolles,
de Cèpes
et de Roquette, Sauce Porto – Quail roasted while stuffed with the girolle chanterelle
mushroom, and cèpes, the French Porcini mushroom, along with rocket leaves. The
dish is served with a port wine sauce. Despite
France having its own Port style wines, both Port
and Madeira wines
will be in every French kitchen and in many sauces.
Caille Aux Raisins - Quail prepared and served with grapes.
California quail
www.flickr.com/photos/71073348@N08/6920753719/
La Crème de Topinambours en Cappuccino
et Son Effilochée de Poitrine de Caille – A frothy cream of Jerusalem artichoke soup served with small
pieces of quail breast.
The use of the word cappuccino in this menu listing refers to the
froth on the soup and not to coffee. When the Italians named their coffee
creation cappuccino little attention was paid to the froth. Cappuccino coffee
received its name from the color of the milky coffee, which is similar to the
color of the hood of a Capuchin friar's robes. However, do not let us get
confused by the facts. On today's French menus cappuccino, apart from
when the word is actually used for cappuccino coffee, means froth. The word
effilochée in this menu listing indicates the way the quail meat has been cut.
Your French-English dictionary will show the translation
of effilochée as frayed; however on a French menu effilochée refers to the
way meat is cut and here it indicates the slicing of quail
breast into small pieces to serve in the soup.
Salade
d'Oeuf
de Caille, Pointe d'Asperge et Aiguillette de
Canard - A salad
of quails’ eggs,
they will be served either fried or boiled, whichever looks better, along with
asperge, asparagus
spears, and slices of Magret de
Canard, duck
breast.
Fig and quail egg salad.
Photograph by
Apolonia courtesy of freedigitalphotos
Salade de Cailles
Rôties au Vinaigre Balsamique – A salad of roasted quail dressed
with a balsamic vinaigrette.
Quail Eggs
The European quail is a little smaller
than the American quail. Despite the quail family's connection to pheasants you
would not know it to taste one or to look at one. Farms that raise quail also
raise these birds for their beautiful eggs; quail eggs are an essential part of
quail farming economics.
Quail eggs
Photograph by Phiseksit courtesy of freedigitalphots.net
Quail eggs taste exactly the same as a
chicken egg; however, if you were planning to make an omelet the size of a two chicken-egg
omelet you will need about 10 quail eggs.
A hen’s egg and a quail egg.
Photograph courtesy of Yay Micro.
During the short hunting season, wild
quail are legally hunted in France; if they appear on a restaurant’s menu the
term used will be caille sauvage, wild quail. Wild quail are smaller and stronger tasting than the
farmed variety, but they are also tougher and so they will be prepared with
different recipes to farmed quail.
Wild quail in the bushes.
www.flickr.com/photos/sidm/4220112535/
In the Old Testament, Exodus 16, it is
the quail, along with Manna that God sent for the Israelites to eat in the
desert. The original recipe served at that time, has been lost in the sands of
the Sinai desert. In France, there are many new and recreated recipes for
quail.
Caille - Quail in the
languages of France's neighbors:
(Catalan - guatlla, guatla, guàtlera),
(Dutch - kwartel), (German - wachtel), (Italian - quaglia comune), (Spanish
- codorniz común).
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Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com
Copyright 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019.
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Connected Posts:
Foie Gras in French Cuisine. Foie Gras is Fattened
Goose or Duck Liver Foie. Foie Gras on French Menus.
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