Behind the French Menu

Duxelles on French Menus. Duxelles in French Cuisine.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

With mushroom duxelles inside the puff pastry en croute casing.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mascardo/533120584/

Duxelles is a five-hundred-year-old recipe of finely chopped wild mushrooms, shallots, and herbs cooked in butter. Duxelles are one of the oldest French culinary creations and will still be on many menus though often the mushrooms are the farmed varieties. Duxelles, today with or without wild mushrooms, are still used as originally intended as a stuffing or as a garnish for egg, fish, and meat dishes. Duxelles may sometimes be helped along with wine and prepared with an added sauce. Other modern Duxelle variations will have the mushrooms replaced by vegetables or seafood; that is usually clearly noted on the menu listing

Salmon Coulibiac, Duxelles, Fine Herbs,

The traditional Coulibiac is a salmon dish prepared by layering the salmon with spinach and rice. Nevertheless, I have seen many variations on this dish, and here we have Duxelles added.

Photograph courtesy of Edsel Little

https://www.flickr.com/photos/edsel_/12312701294/

The originator of this simple but famous recipe was one of France’s earliest published chefs, Francois Pierre de La Varenne (1618 – 1678). The recipe was published in his first book Le Cuisinier François, the French cook. La Varenne named the dish after his employer the Marquis d'Duxelles. (The Marquis d'Duxelles was Nicolas Chalon du Blé (1652 – 1730) The Marquis was also a French general and served as the French Foreign Minister).

Duxelles on French Menus:

Ballotine de Pintade Farcie à la Duxelle de Champignons - A deboned Guinea fowl stuffed with mushroom Duxelles and then roasted or braised.

Coeur de Filet Mignon Farci à la Duxelle de Chanterelles, Sauce Bercy – The heart of a pork fillet, the pork tenderloin stuffed with Duxelles made with wild chanterelle mushrooms and served with a Sauce Bercy made for meat. (There is a Sauce Bercy for fish and the Sauce Bercy noted above for meat; there is also a Beurre Bercy, a cold compound butter for meat). N.B. A French filet mignon, unless expressly indicating beef or veal is, like this menu listing, pork.

A pork chop with mushroom and black garlic Duxelles.

Photograph courtesy of Edsel Little.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/edsel_/11919711456/

Filet De Bœuf Français Accompagné sur une Duxelles De Champignons, Sauce Au Foie Gras, Et Frites De Légumes Anciens. – A cut of a French beef fillet, the tenderloin, accompanied by mushroom Duxelles served with a fattened duck's liver sauce, and French fries made using heirloom vegetables; those vegetables would probably include Jerusalem artichokes, parsnips, and Swedes (rutabaga).

Filet de Sole en Duxelles de Crevettes – Filet of sole served with the Duxelles made with shrimps, not mushrooms. With a menu listing like this ask which of the many different soles is the one on the menu. It may be Dover Sole, the most expensive or Lemon Sole or another.

Smoked New York Strip Steak with Portobello Duxelle in a Peanut and Parsley Crust.

A New York Strip Steak in France would be a faux-filet, a cut just below the French entrecote.

Photograph courtesy of Ana Reyes

https://www.flickr.com/photos/79780289@N06/6993791338/

Onglet De Bœuf Grillé Et Ses Zitoni Crème Brocolis Et Duxelles De Paris - A flank steak or skirt steak. In the USA an onglet may also be called a London broil. Here the steak is accompanied by zitoni pasta, (zitoni is a large sized ziti tubular pasta) accompanied by creamed broccoli, and Duxelles made with button mushrooms.

Zitoni Pasta

Queue de Lotte Farcie à la Duxelles de Pleurotes, Sucs Déglacés au « Zibbibo » de Sicile - Tail of monkfish stuffed with oyster mushroom Duxelles served with a sauce made with the cooking juices and the scrapings from the cooking dishes flavored with Zibibbo, a sweet Muscat wine from the Italian Island of Pantelleria.(The Zibbibo wine may only be made on the island of Pantelleria though it may be bottled on the island of Sicily).

Raviole de Txangurro à la Duxelle de Champignons – Ravioli stuffed with the Basque dish of Txangurro, crab meat prepared with onions, tomatoes, hot peppers, and brandy, accompanied by mushroom Duxelles. The crab meat will probably come from the Crab Tourteau, France’s most popular local crab.

Of course, a good recipe is for adapting; today the original mushrooms may be changed for another ingredient. The new ingredients may be vegetables or seafood, but they will still be finely chopped and prepared together with shallots and herbs and fried in butter. Menus that offer the traditional duxelles will note duxelles de champignons, button mushrooms, or name a particular mushroom to avoid misunderstandings. The wild mushrooms used may include The Mousseron or St. George's Mushroom, the Pleurot, the wild oyster mushroom, the Cepe, the French wild porcini mushroom, or the Morille, the Morel mushroom, among many others.

Scallop, mille-feuille of cabbage and scallop brandade.

Juices of grilled red cabbage, sauerkraut and pear duxelles, lardo.

Photograph courtesy of Two Helmets Cooking

https://www.flickr.com/photos/34338566@N08/5534556809/

Duxelles, a simple recipe with so much fame.

“ A simple recipe,” you may say; “I could have done that;” you may say; however, the fact is that none of us were around to create the recipe in 1651. Then La Varenne published this recipe in his first French cookbook: Le Cuisinier François, the French cook. Long before cultivated mushrooms were farmed Varenne would have sent his kitchen staff out into the woods to collect the wild mushrooms he used in his recipe. La Varenne probably turns over in his grave as his copyright has expired and his descendants cannot receive royalties

The front page of the original edition of

Le Cuisinier François.

Photograph courtesy of the Biblotech National de France.

La Varenne’s book is still going strong with a number of French editions available at Amazon France and Amazon USA with the last edition that I saw dated 2013. English adaptations are also available. La Varenne did not leave us with one book; he published at least three more. There are disputes around his ownership of all the recipes, but it is enough to say that they allow us to look inside the French kitchen in the 17th century.

Read the French version for free.

The French national Library website http://gallica.bnf.fr/ allows the reader access to the original book free of charge and makes a small charge for downloading it.

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Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

Bleu de Gex AOC/AOP – One of the Jura’s Most Famous Cheeses. Bleu de Gex on French Menus.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

Blue de Gex.

Photograph courtesy of Fromagerie de la Combe du Val

The taste and texture of Bleu de Gex Cheese.

Bleu de Gex AOP is a mild, blue, 50% fat, creamy, but slightly crumbly, ivory colored, cows’ milk cheese made with unpasteurized milk. The cheese has a yellowish to brown rind, greenish-blue veins and has an earthy smell with a slightly nutty taste. It is a medium to mild blue cheese and aged for at least 21 days before being sold.

The Bleu de Gex has a French language website which may be viewed in English using the Bing or Google translate apps.

http://www.bleu-de-gex.com/-L-AOP-du-Bleu-de-Gex-.html

The other names of the Bleu de Gex cheese.

Bleu de Gex was the first cow’s milk blue cheese to be awarded a French AOC so you may correctly assume it is one of best blue cheeses. The official name of this cheese is Blue du Haut Jura AOP, but it also called Le Bleu de Septmoncel AOP while the name the Blue de Gex (pronounced ble de j-ex) is the name used most often. The different names relate to tradition and the cheese’s history.

A wedge of Blue de Gex

Photograph courtesy of Ma Fromagerie Fine, Rennes.

The French department of Jura in the Jura Mountains.

The cheese is made in the higher parts of the department of Jura, the Haut Jura, in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. The Jura Massif, the mountains, is north of the Alps and the department borders Switzerland and is, somewhat obviously, named after the Jura Mountains. Confusion can arise as apart from the French department of Jura, there are the French-Swiss Jura Mountains and there is also a Swiss canton called Jura. N.B. The French department of Jura and the Swiss Canton of Jura are close but do not have a shared border. (The regions of Bourgogne, Burgundy, and the Franche-Comté were combined into one super region called Bourgogne-Franche-Comté on 1-1-2015. The number of regions in mainland France was reduced from 22 to 13 on that date. In many respects, France’s regions are similar to USA States and British Counties. The government hopes the reduction of bureaucracy will bring significant savings for the taxpayers; we shall see!).

Aging Bleu de Gex Cheeses.

Photograph courtesy of Pays de Gex-lafaucille

The area where Bleu de Gex cheese is made.

Bleu de Gex is only made in small traditional dairies and farms where the cows are milked or in small co-operative dairies in the Haut Jura. The milk used for this cheese comes from Montbeliarde or Pie Rouge de l’Est cows only. The cows graze freely in the summer on the grasses, herbs, and flowers in the Jura mountains and that produces their particular milk that makes this unique cheese. In the winter the cows are fed hay collected from the grasses, herbs, and flowers in the same area where they feed in the summer. Some of the Bleu de Gex cheese comes from over the departmental border in the department of Daubs. The calves are all raised by their mothers, and no antibiotics or growth hormones are permitted.

The Jura is famous for its cheeses and wines.

The Jura is known for many excellent cheeses apart from the Bleu de Gex, especially its five-star Comté AOP cheese, its Morbier AOP, and Mont d’Or AOP cheeses. The Jura is also famous for its Vin Jaune, yellow wine, as well as its Vin de Paille, the so-called straw wine, and for its Macvin, a fortified wine, mostly consumed as an aperitif.

Tarte au Bleu de Gex et aux Poires

A tarte made with pears and Bleu de Gex.

Photograph courtesy of cancoillotte.net

Bleu de Gex on French Menus:

Terrine de Lapereau au Bleu de Gex – A hare pate prepared with the Bleu de Gex cheese. (Hare in France are farm raised).

Salade d’Endive et Poire au Bleu de Gex, Cerneaux de Noix et Abricots Secs – A salad with endives, pears, Bleu de Gex cheese, walnuts and dried apricots.

Bleu de Gex.

Photograph courtesy of JURAFLORE

Faux-Filet Au Bleu De Gex – In the USA this may be called a Strip Steak, a Kansas City Strip or a Delmonico while In the UK this would be a UK sirloin steak. (The UK and US sirloins are different cuts).

Suprême De Poulet Fermier Au Bleu De Gex – Breast of farm raised chicken served with a sauce made with Bleu de Gex cheese.

Tarte Fine Au Bleu De Gex Et Aux Poires - A tart made from a disk of puff pastry covered with pears and Bleu de Gex cheese.

Enjoy the cheese.

Photograph courtesy of Fromagerie de la Chat-Bo

Salade De Chêvre Chaud Et Bleu De Gex Chaud - A salad made with warm goat’s cheese and warm Bleu de Gex cheese.

Where Bleu de Gex began.

The cheese has been made in the area since the 13th century when it was created by the monks of the Abbey of Condat. The original abbey was founded in the 4th century C.E. and would, in the 17th century, take on the name of the village of Saint-Claud and became the Abbey of Saint-Claude. The town of Saint-Claud is 58 km (36 miles) from the departmental capital of the Jura called Lons-le-Saunier and is 82 km (51 miles) from Geneva, Switzerland, and 101 km (63 miles) from Lake Annecy. In the winter the area is a skier's playground.

Skiing in the Jura.

Photograph courtesy of richard olvera

https://www.flickr.com/photos/121036654@N04/15965411132/

The history of the Pays de Gex.

The Pays de Gex means the Land of Gex and changed hands between Switzerland and France many times. In 1815, after the final exile of Napoleon I with the Treaty of Paris, the Pays de Gex was divided between France and Switzerland. The Swiss part of the Pays de Gex is now the northwestern part of the Canton of Geneva.

Part of the Montbéliard production team

Photograph courtesy of tomislav medak

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomislavmedak/32445375772/

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Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

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.

Photograph courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library

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.

Photograph courtesy of duncan c

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.

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

https://www.flickr.com/photos/leplaza-brussels/12475952354/

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.

Photograph courtesy of Ewan Munro

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.

Photograph courtesy of Betsy & Ian F-R

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.

Photograph courtesy of John Davey

https://www.flickr.com/photos/27927484@N00/19086513628/

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.