Carrelet, Plie or Plie d'Europe – Plaice, the fish. Plaice on French Menus.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com




European Plaice.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/biodivlibrary/10574144975/

Plaice on the menu.

Carrelet, Plie or Plie d'Europe – Plaice, European Plaice is a sea-fish with delicate flesh that often replaces the more expensive and better textured, and more expensive, Dover sole.  Plaice will be on restaurant menus as filets as they are mostly caught when quite large though they may be baked whole and then fileted. In Normandy and Brittany, so famous for their sea fish and seafood plaice is often on the menu with recipes that include their local cider. In the UK plaice filets may be on sale at the local fish and chip shop.
   

Plaice and chips on sale in the UK.
  
Plaice is not a flounder though there is a family connection.

When you see a whole plaice, you will recognize it from its oval/diamond shape and the orange or red spots on its gray back. The underside is white. N.B. American plaice is a slightly different fish from that served in Europe, but it is from the same family, a tasty fish with tender but less firm flesh than the European plaice.

The plaice that reaches the tables in France come from the Mediterranean, the English Channel and the Northeast Atlantic, with most fish caught weighing between 2 and 3 kilos though larger fish occasionally do get caught. Some fish may be caught by amateur fishermen and fisherwomen, but most will have been caught by the large fishing vessels. Some plaice will be delivered to the fish wholesalers as whole fish and others as prepared fillets.
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Plaice on French Menus:
 
Carrelet Grillé à la Plancha et son Beurre Citronné – Carrelet grilled on a plancha flavored with a warm lemon flavored butter sauce.

Filet de Carrelet Beurre Blanc au Cidre, Riz et Ratatouille Maison -  A filet of plaice prepared with a beurre blanc sauce using cider instead of white wine and served with rice and the restaurant’s take on Ratatouille.
   

A roasted filet of plaice.
Photograph courtesy of Hotel Le Plaza, Brussels
 
Filet de Carrelet Grillé avec Fenouil, Mousseline de Pommes de Terre et Sauce Hollandaise – Filet of grilled plaice flavored with fennel and served with a potato moose and Hollandaise Sauce.
     
Roulade de Carrelet, Crème de Crevettes Grises – A filet of plaice rolled around a cream of sand shrimps.
    
Fish (plaice) and chips
With mushy peas and sauce tartare on the side.
   
Filet de Plie, Aubergines Confites, Persillade, Sauce Vierge – Filet of plaice served with aubergines confits,  cooked to a consistency of a jam, a persillade sauce of garlic and parsley and a sauce vierge.

A Sauce Vierge translates as a virgin sauce. The name comes from the use of virgin olive oil. Sauce Vierge will most usually be on your menu with fish dishes.  As its name suggests, it includes virgin olive oil and with the oil will be fresh tomatoes, garlic, lemon juice, basil, red wine vinegar, salt and black pepper. The sauce will be served slightly warm but not cooked as virgin olive oil quickly loses flavor when cooked. The sauce will be poured on the fish just before it is served.
  

Grilled plaice and Sauce Tartare.
  
Filet de Plie aux Queues d'Écrevisses et Sauce Américaine – Filet of Plaice served with freshwater crayfish tails.  The original Sauce Américaine (or Sauce Armoricaine) was created for the homard, the two-clawed European lobster. Today; however, the European two-clawed lobster will be too expensive for most restaurants’ clientele, and many chefs will use the langouste, the clawless rock lobster, the owner of the lobster tail or, as in this case, freshwater crayfish tails. 

Sauce Américaine is a popular sauce made with butter, olive oil, white wine, cognac, garlic, tomatoes, onions, shallots, herbs. Chefs will seek out alternatives for the lobster coral, the lobster’s roe, and the lobster’s liver that were an essential part of the original recipe for a Sauce Américaine. For more detail about the arguments over the correct name for this sauce and the influences behind the sauce’s creation click here.
   

Plaice on sale in a market.
   
Rougail de Filet de Plie aux Bananes Plantin Rôties et Gratin de Cristophine à l'Emmental -  A French Rougail Creole stew of herbs and spices prepared with the plaice, grilled plantains, cooking bananas, and mashed Cristophines browned under the grill with Emmental cheese.
 
The Christophine, named after Christopher Columbus, is a pale green to whitish vegetable that originated in Mexico.  In the Caribbean, the Christophine is an important vegetable, mostly called the chouchou, it is often cooked like mashed potatoes and here it is browned under the grill with Emmental cheese.

Rougail is a herb, spice, and vegetable grouping that comes from French Creole cuisine in the Indian Ocean.  The ingredients, often prepare as a stew will include ginger, thyme, pimiento, and tomatoes. Sometimes garlic and onions will be added along with white wine.
   

Filet Frit de Plie
Fried filet of plaice.
Served with a beef sausage creamed wild spinach and star anis sauce
  
(Catalan -  palaia anglesa), (Dutch - schol), (German – scholle) (Italian – passera or solla), (Spanish - solla, solla europea).
   
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Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

Copyright 2010, 2017.

Calvados – The Most Famous Apple Brandy in the World. Calvados on French Menus.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

 

    
A Calvados snifter.
A Calvados shot glass is also acceptable.
   
Calvados is the department in Normandy that gave its name to three different AOC/AOP Calvados apple brandies. This is the only non-grape brandy that is considered, and I do not disagree, to be on a par with the world’s most famous grape brandies, Cognac and Armagnac. 
    
The beginning.
An old cider press.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bocage-normand-tourisme/8263610499/

The term Calvados covers three very different AOC/AOP apple brandies.  The names may confuse as apart from the three Calvados AOC/AOP apple brandies there is the Normandy administrative department of Calvados and a Calvados IGP wine. 

N.B. The regions of Haute-Normandie, upper Normandie, and Bass Normandie, lower Normandy, were combined into a single region called Normandie, Normandy, on 1-1-2016.  For details on this and the other newly created French super regions click here.
   
The three AOC/AOP Calvados brandies:
 
Calvados  AOC/AOP

Calvados  AOC/AOP - The first and the most well-known Calvados. It is produced in nearly all the departments of Normandy from North to South and accounts for some 70% of Calvados production. Calvados AOC/AOP is produced in nearly all parts of Normandy, not only in the department that bears that name.
   
Calvados casks aging
Photograph courtesy of Søren Hugger Møller
  
Calvados Pays d'Auge AOC/AOP

Calvados Pays d'Auge AOC –  The second most well-known Calvados. It is made in the old Normandy region of Pays d'Auge that includes parts of the departments of Calvados, Orne and EureCalvados Pays d'Auge AOC must be double-distilled, it is not the producer's decision.

Calvados Domfrontais AOC/AOP 

Calvados Domfrontais AOC - The third Calvados and the last to be awarded an AOC/AOP. This Calvados has a unique and distinctive taste being an apple brandy made with at least 30% pear cider, a perrier.  The pear eau-de-vie provides for a very different taste.  Calvados Domfrontais is mostly produced in the Normandy departments of Orne, Manche, and Mayenne. Its AOC requires aging for a minimum of three-years of in oak barrels. This very different Calvados represents under 2% of the total production of Calvados.

Blending Calvados.
  
The cellar master of each Calvados producer must work to allow each blended brandy to have a distinctive taste. A taste that can be repeated year after year.  With a taste that can be repeated the customers will return year after year.
 
All the three types of Calvados AOC are 40% alcohol brandies.  They must be made from cider or Perrier that is distilled to become an apple or pear brandy and then aged for at least two years in oak barrels. (Domfrontais three years).  Most Calvadoses are now distilled twice as that allows for a smoother taste in even the youngest products.
  
The ages of blended Calvados.
  
All these three brandies have age groups that are similar to the terms used for aged Cognac and blended Armagnac.  Despite that, in addition, a branded Calvados may come along with the producer’s own declaration of age.

The age on the label of blended Calvadoses uses letters and words that refer to the youngest brandy in the blend.  Even if 1% of a younger eau-de-vie, a young brandy, is included it dooms the blend to that lower age group. The age of that younger eau-de-vie is all the label may show.  High-quality calvados often includes eau-de-vies that are much older than that indicated by the label.  Nevertheless, all the label may only show is the age of the youngest brandy in the blend.
 
The ages of Calvados on the label.

Fine - Fine Calvados, Trois Étoiles - Three Stars ***, and Trois Pommes, the pictures of three apples - These indicate the youngest Calvados in a blend.They will have been matured for at least two years in oak barrels. My advice when these are on the wine list is to pass on them if you can pay for a one or two-step upgrade.  It is worthwhile to get at least a Vieux or preferably a V.S.O.P. Calvados. They will be smoother and richer than the younger brandies.

Vieux, Old, or Réserve, Reserved - These names on the label indicates brandies that been barrel aged for at least three years
   
A VSOP and an XO Calvados.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/farehamwine/9931555495/

 V.O. Very Old, Vieille Réserve,  Old Réserve,  V.S.O.P. Very Superior Old Pale - These brandies will have been barrel aged for at least four years.

Extra, Napoléon, XO,  Extra Old, Hors d'Age, To old to determine or Age Inconnu, Age unknown These Calvadoses are at least six years old but are often sold with descriptions that indicate they are older.  There is no official standard for a Calvados over 6 years old. Markings that indicate that they are 20 years old etc. have no legal meaning. The producer’s interest in protecting his or her reputation is considered enough of a guarantee that he or she only advertises a product whose age is accepted by his or her competitors.
    
Millesimes – Vintages.
   
A Calvados vintage, much like that of wine, indicates that the Calvados comes from a single year of harvest. That is a year that was exceptionally good and all the eau-de vies come from the same distillation, the one whose year is specified on the label. When this happens, the label carries the year the brandy was distilled. However, a vintage for Calvados, again like that of wine, does not indicate how long the brandy was in oak barrels. I was in a Cider, Pommeau and Calvados shop in Normandy where the sales assistant was trying to sell me a bottle of twenty-year-old Calvados. It may well have been twenty years old but Calvados, once bottled, does not age like a wine. The label did not indicate how long the brandy had been aged in wooden barrels.  I chose another bottle from a well-known producer that showed it had spent ten 10 years maturing in oak barrels.  Look carefully for the year of bottling on the label.  That year less the year of the distillation tells the real age of the brandy.
  
Other Calvados names 
  
Other names such as Special Reserve, Age d'Or, Golden Age, etc. are the producers’ creations and have no legal meaning. These names are added to the official grades at the owner’s choosing and are personal decisions. Any difference in cost for added words on the label will require your own decision and your credit card. 
  
A Trou Normand

A Trou Normand is a small drink of Calvados taken between courses during a very long meal. The True Normand is now often served as a sorbet. A  straight Trou Normand or the sorbet version is supposed to waken the digestive juices.

Calvados Fermier

Another name that will be on some labels and does have a real meaning is Calvados Fermier.  Calvados Fermier is farm produced Calvados. That means that the farm that grew the apples also made the product; this was the traditional form of production. It is nice to know that the producer also grew and looked after the apples and made his or her own Calvados. However, fermier says nothing about the age.
   
Aging Calvados.
   
Calvados on French Menus: 

Terrine de Sanglier au Calvados – A pate of wild boar flavored with Calvados. The pate will have come from a farmed wild boar; a real wild boar would have been noted as sanglier sauvage.
 
Travers de Porc Grillé Sauce au Miel et au Calvados - Grilled pork spare ribs served with a sauce of honey and Calvados.

Tarte Tatin Flambée au Calvados, Crème Épaisse Fermière Tarte Tatin flambéed with Calvados and served with a thick 30% cream.
   
A Calvados apple orchard and visitors at dusk.
       
Rognons de Veau aux Pommes – Veal kidneys prepared with Calvados and served with slices of apple.

Pomme Aux Amandes Tuile Croustillante Au Chantilly - Calvados apple and almond tile shaped biscuits served with Chantilly cream. Tuiles are thin flat, tile-like cookies often including almonds.
 
Éventail de Magret de Canard - Sauce au Calvados et Pommes Fruit Caramélisées – Thin slices of duck breast laid out in the shape of a fan and served with a Calvados sauce, and caramelized fruits.

Filet Mignon Sauce Calvados et ses Légumes – A pork fillet, the tenderloin, served with a Calvados sauce and vegetables. A filet Mignon in France is not a USA filet Mignon.  The French created the word, and the USA changed its usage.  A French filet mignon without any other indication will be a cut from a pork fillet.
    
Apple and Calvados Trifle
 
The amateurs, the lovers, of Calvados
 
Be careful in Normandy if you meet up with the local lovers of Calvados. They will honor their favorite by spending hours carefully explaining all the various attributes. They will fill you with legends and glasses of Calvados while carrying on non-stop.  You will be in for a long evening.  You will be told why each of these Norman apple brandies is far more complex and far more unique creations than the famous wine brandies of Armagnac and Cognac.  Even if you do not fall asleep at the table, these same knowledgeable individuals will drink you under it.
   

The different Calvados growing regions.
Photograph courtesy of Pininterest.
  
Pommeau.
     
Normandy (and Brittany and part of the Pays de Loire) have many cider producers that also produce Pommeau. Pommeau is a light 16-18% alcohol apéritif made with apple juice and a young apple brandy. In Normandy, the most famous is the Pommeau de Normandie  AOC/AOP.  The Norman and Brittany and Pay de Loire Pommeaus will await another post. For an introduction to the ciders of France click here.


The origin of the word brandy.
   
The Dutch were among the most influential wine traders in the Old and New Worlds. Also they were the first serious buyers of the wines from the area now called Cognac. When the Dutch brought the wines from the area that would become Cognac, they transported them, in barrels, to Holland.  Unfortunately, back in Holland, they found these wines did not travel well and would not sell well as wine. To safeguard their investment, the Dutch distilled these not so brilliant wines into liquor with excellent results.  The Dutch called this liquor brandewijn, meaning burnt wine. Brandewijn was the word that would become brandy.
  
The Dutch realized that distilling the wines where they were made would save lots of space on their ships. The Calvados producers need 27 kg of apples or 20 liters of cider to obtain 1 liter of Calvados. Distilling the liquor in the area before shipping was a game-changing decision. In the first case it saved the Dutch shipping costs, but in the second instance, this allowed the French to see that this was an interesting and growing business.  The French copied the Dutch and opened their own distilleries. Later, they came up with a second distillation that is still used today; that second distillation allows for a smoother liquor.
 
Calvados wines.
    
Calvados  IGP wines are reds, rose, and white wines produced in the department of Calvados. These Calvados wines are the most northerly IGP vineyards in France.
 
The other joys of Normandie
  
Normandy is home to much more than Calvados. From Normandy comes some of France's most famous cheeses including Camembert AOP, Pavé d’Auge AOP, Livarot AOP, Pont l’Evêque AOP, Neufchatel AOP and Brillat-Savarin among others. Also from Normandy comes some of France's best butter including Beurre d'Isigny AOC/AOP and the best Crème Fraiche AOP.   Dining in Normandy also includes some of France's best veal, sea fish, seafood, and lamb.

Calvados and the Second World War.
    
Calvados is also a department, an administrative district, for part of Normandy.  It is home to Omaha Beach where the Allies landed on June 6, 1944. From here and other beaches in Normandie named Gold, Juno, Utah, and Sword they began the long and bloody trek that finally brought WWII in Europe to a close. That ended the horror that was Nazi Germany.
   
WWII Landings at Calvados
Photograph courtesy of PhotosNormandie
  
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The Real Tarte Tatin. The Tarte des Demoiselles Tatin, the Tart made by the Tatin Sisters.

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Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

Copyright 2010, 2017

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