Behind the French Menu

Salade Niçoise - Salad Nicoise. The Most Famous of all French Salads is Named after the City of Nice, on the Cote d’Azur, Provence, France.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

Salade Niçoise

This recipes permits both tuna and anchovies.

The Classic Salade Niçoise

The classic Salad Niçoise was an hors d’œuvre, an appetizer served before the first course, the French entrée. The tradition of serving Salad Niçoise as an hors d’œuvre is now more honored in the breach than in the observance. Today, a Salade Niçoise will likely be a French entrée or the main dish when it its part of a light lunch.

Ordering Salade Niçoise

With few exceptions, most chefs from Nice agree that the recipe will include canned tuna or anchovies, but not both. Then are added tomatoes, the black Niçoise AOC olives, fava beans, cooked baby artichokes, sweet peppers, herbs, especially basil, and a vinaigrette dressing with the oil from Nice’s own AOP olive oil the, Huile d'Olive de Nice and red wine vinegar.

Among the variations that are accepted but considered later additions are boiled potatoes, boiled eggs, spring onions, and boiled or steamed haricots verts France’s favorite fresh bean that we call the green bean or snap bean.

Haricot vert, the essential green bean in a Salade Niçoise

Photograph courtesy of Olivier Bacquet.

www.flickr.com/photos/olibac/4021008699/

Lettuce is often seen in a Salades Nicoise today though it is generally agreed that it is a recent addition, and it is still rare for a chef with Nice's culinary history on his or her mind to include lettuce.

One word of advice, when in Nice do not discuss with the locals the exact recipe as even the local gourmands disagree. You might end up as I did with my head in my hands along with wine and opinions coming from all sides even though we had finished dinner three hours before.

Salade Niçoise first appeared on French menus in the latter part of the 19th century; less than 30 years after Nice lost its Italian rulers and became part of France. The name of the dish’s original creator is lost, probably during the Franco-Prussian war that ended in France becoming a Republic and Emperor Napoléon III being exiled to England where he later died and is buried.

The most authentic Salade Nicoise recipes that I have seen are the two reported by the famous cookbook author Elizabeth David (1913 – 1992). Her book French Provincial Cooking was published in 1960; however, I read the Penguin Books Edition published posthumously in 1999 with a forward by Julia Child.

The recipes Elizabeth David highlights are from Henri Heyraud and Escoffier.

Henri Heraud’s recipe was from his book La Cuisine a Nice, the cuisine of Nice. Henri Heyraud, was a chef, teacher and historian of the cuisine served in France in the early 20th century,

In the footsteps of Escoffier

Photograph courtesy of Edsel Little

www.flickr.com/photos/edsel_/5880234487/

Henri Heraud’s recipe for Salade Niçoise:

Canned tuna in oil, peeled tomatoes and diced anchovy fillets, all seasoned with tarragon, chervil, and chopped chives and prepared with or without mustard.

This recipe shows that the accepted tradition where you can use tuna or anchovies, but not both was not there in the early years. Heraud uses both tuna and anchovies, and the only vegetables are tomatoes. The recipe also offers no vinaigrette dressing and the oil used is that that comes from the canned tuna. That would be a very rare offering today, but Herault published his recipe in 1922.

Escoffier’s recipe for Salade Niçoise:

Young artichoke hearts, black nice olives, uncooked sweet peppers, tomatoes and anchovy fillets all served with a vinaigrette dressing made of olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, mustard and the most important of French herb groups Les Fine Herbes.

Canned anchovies.

Photograph courtesy of Anders Porter

www.flickr.com/photos/anderspee/6567158853/

Escoffier, a Provencal favorite son, surprisingly does not use the Provencal herb group the Herbs de Provence, instead, he chooses Les Fine Herbes. Escoffier. uses anchovy fillets, and no option of tuna is offered.

Nice and the Cote-d’Azur.

The Cote-d’Azur, the azure or blue coast was the name given to Nice and its coastal area in 1887 by the French writer and poet Stephen Liégeard (1830 -1925). At that time the South of France was being discovered by wealthy British tourists who came from the rainy UK to the unclouded blue sky of coastal Provence.

The Promenade des Anglais in Nice.

Photograph courtesy of Josh Graciano

www.flickr.com/photos/newmundane/5595810828/

Dining in Nice with its French, Provençal and Italian influences makes the visitor aware of the many other dishes that originated here including Ratatouille, Pissaladiere, and Socca

Ratatouille

Photograph courtesy of Tom Dixon

www.flickr.com/photos/twd3lr/7842204082/

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Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

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Tarte Flambée or Flammekueche; Alsace’s Signature Slow Fast Food.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

Cooking inside the oven at the Taverne de l’Ackerland

Tarte Flambée is also known as Flammekueche or Flammen Kuechen

Photograph courtesy of Confrérie du véritable Flammekueche

The traditional tarte flambée or flammekueche

Tarte flambées, locally mostly called flammekueche have been made in the Alsace for at least one hundr ed years. International tourism’s enormous growth than began some seventy or so years ago brought this family dish into local restaurants. The tarte is a rolled out, very thin, pâte à pain, bread dough, covered with crème fraîche and a soft white cheese, usually a local cheese called bibeleskaes. Over the cheese are spread thinly sliced onions and lardons, (smoked or fried bacon bits), and then all will be baked in a wood-burning oven for about ten minutes and served.

A tarte flambée.

Photograph courtesy of Alan Hochberg

www.flickr.com/photos/nicestalan/4535793428/

Public demand from tourists, including French tourists, have changed the size of the portions. Most restaurants now offer tarte flambées, in both small and large sizes. The small size makes an excellent entrée, the French first course, or together with a salad a light lunch. A large tarte flambée will be the plat, the French main course. Dessert versions have also been created, and a dessert tarte flambée comes with fruit, often with a taste of a strong eau-de vie, a fruit brandy, while some may have ice cream added just before serving. Tarte flambée, the French name, remains the name most often used in English as there is no other accepted English name. Menus may offer Tarte Flambée Salée, savory or Sucrée, sweet versions. The options are endless, but a few of the favorites are noted below:

Tarte flambée on French menus.

Tarte Flambée Classic or Nature, Traditionnelle or à l’Ancienne - All these names indicate a tarte flambée made with the traditional recipe. A very thin, pâte à pain, that’s bread dough, is covered with crème fraîche and a soft white cheese usually a local cheese called bibeleskaes. Over the cheese are spread thinly sliced onions and lardons, (smoked or fried bacon bits).

Tarte Flambée au Magret de Canard Fumé - A traditional tarte flambée with added slices of smoked duck breast.

Tartes Flambées au Feu de Bois - Tarte flambées cooked in a traditional wood-burning oven.

The menu.

Tarte Flambée aux Bananes Flambée au Rhum – A banana dessert tarte flambéed with rum. A dessert Tarte Flambée flambéed with rum. Dessert versions of tarte flambée like this one were created much later than the traditional versions when tourists arrived with a taste for restaurant theatre. The tarte flambée dessert versions now often include a brandy or an eau-de-vie, which will be, flambéed, set alight in front of the diner; shades of Crepe Suzette!

La Tarte Flambée aux Pommes, Flambée à l'Alcool de Quetsches – An apple, dessert tart, flambéed with the plum eau-de-vie, brandy, made from the Alsace and Lorraine's famous quetsche plums. Like all other plums this plumb’s origin is Asian, and like many other French fruits reached France, Germany, Spain and the UK with the Romans. The quetsche plum is, in fact, a German cross and in Germany is called a Zwetsche.

A dessert pear tarte flambée.

Photograph courtesy of Win_Photography

www.flickr.com/photos/15472273@N07/29822040700/

For the citizens of the regions of Alsace and Lorraine, the quetsche plum is a native son. The quetche is a mauve to almost black plum has fragrant and sweet yellow flesh; it is oval shaped with nearly pointed ends; its nearest UK relation is the damson plum which is not as sweet. In season, these plums are on sale all over France, and out of season, you may request, for a digestif, the 40% alcohol quetsche eau-de vie.

A Gisselbrecht quetsche eau-de-vie

Photograph courtesy of Cdiscount

Tarte Flambée: Formule à Partir de 6 Personnes par Table: Tartes Flambées à Volonté Salée, Sucrée et Salade à Volonté - An all you can eat option of sweet and savory Tarte Flambés accompanied by mixed green salads. With the addition of a couple of bottles of Alsace white wines who could ask for anything more! N.B. The salads served with tarte flambées are usually small. so unless noted on the menu, do not expect too much..

Tarte Flambée Gratinée à l'Emmental/ Gruyère/Munster, Salade Verte Mélangée (Supplément par Personne) – A traditional tarte flambée baked with added French Emmental, Gruyere or Munster cheese. A mixed green salad is offered with a per person surcharge.

Tarte Flambée Forestière

A traditional tarte flambée with added Champignons de Paris

Photograph courtesy of janebelindasmith

www.flickr.com/photos/near_fantastica/3572534526/

Tarte Flambée Moitié/Moitié ... C'est vous qui Composez - Moitié-moitié means half and half; and no, this tarte flambé is not made with that American coffee cream! Here, moitié-moitié is on the menu for a tarte flambée made to your order with two different additions. Moitié-moitié is also what you say, in parts of France, when you ask for two different dishes to be split between two diners; each diner will have one half of the other's meal.

The wine to accompany your tarte flambée.

Order Alsatian wine with your tarte flambée, and you may enjoy the perfect light Alsatian lunch or dinner. Choose a white two or, at most, three-year-old semi-dry Alsatian Gewürztraminer or a white semi-dry Alsatian Pinot Gris, and you will not regret it as the Alsace has some of the best white wines in France.

The traditional wine glass used for Alsatian wines.

Photograph courtesy of Topher Howard

www.flickr.com/photos/toolongtobepractical/15084628166/

The history of the tarte flambée.

Some guide books call a tarte flambée an Alsatian pizza; however, those who wrote that obviously know zero about pizza and zero about tarte flambé. Tarte flambée and pizza are entirely different dishes and have different histories, different doughs, and the tarte flambée has no tomatoes and no mozzarella in its history. Making breads in wood burning ovens is

The Alsace together with région of the Lorraine were, over hundreds of years, ruled by France and or Germany in turn. The result today is while the Alsace and the Lorraine are indisputably French a large percentage of the locals also speak German dialects along with perfect French. Flammen kuechen remains one of the names for a tarte flambée in the Alsatian-German dialect called Allemand Alsacien or Elsässerditsch; in the dialect or in French the the words mean cooked in flames.

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