 | |
| Type | Stew |
|---|---|
| Place of origin | France |
| Region or state | Normandy |
| Main ingredients | Veal, mirepoix, butter or cream, flour |
Blanquette de veau (French pronunciation: [blɑ̃kɛtdəvo] ⓘ ) is a French veal stew. In the classic version of the dish the meat is simmered in a white stock and served in a sauce velouté enriched with cream and egg. It is among the most popular meat dishes in France.
The Oxford Companion to Food describes "blanquette" as "a French and to some extent international culinary term indicating a dish of white meat (veal, poultry, also lamb) served in a white sauce". [1] In Larousse Gastronomique , Prosper Montagne's definition is "the French term for a ragout of white meat (veal, lamb or poultry) cooked in a white stock or water with aromatic flavourings". [2] [n 1]
Simone Beck, Louisette Bertholle and Julia Child in their Mastering the Art of French Cooking describe blanquette de veau, as "a much-loved stew in France … veal simmered in a lightly seasoned white stock … served in a sauce velouté made from the veal cooking stock and enriched with cream and egg yolks". [3] In 2007 Anne Willan wrote that French television had recently conducted a poll of favourite meat dishes in which "Blanquette de veau was in the top five, with steak frites and gigot d'agneau [leg of lamb]". [4]
The name "blanquette" derives from "blanc", the French word for white, and there is a purist view that the whiteness of the dish is key, and coloured vegetables such as carrots should not be included. In the words of Anthony Bourdain:
Some cooks, such as Anne Willan, share Bourdain's view, but numerous cooks from Auguste Escoffier (1907) onwards have included carrots in their recipes for blanquette de veau, though in many cases the carrot is removed prior to serving. [6]
Beck, Bertholle and Child list six suitable cuts of veal for a blanquette: poitrine (breast), haute de côtes (short ribs), épaule (shoulder), côtes découvertes (middle neck) and gîte/jarret (knuckle). [7] Other cooks and food writers have differed in their recommended cuts for the dish:
| Cook/writer | Recommended cut | Ref. |
|---|---|---|
| James Beard | shoulder | [8] |
| Mary Berry | shoulder | [9] |
| Paul Bocuse | flank and tendron [n 2] | [10] |
| Anthony Bourdain | neck or shoulder | [5] |
| Eugénie Brazier | mixture of breast and collar | [11] |
| Robert Carrier | shoulder or breast | [12] |
| Craig Claiborne | shoulder | [13] |
| Auguste Escoffier | breast, shoulder and collar ribs | [14] |
| Michael Field | leg or rump | [15] |
| Jane Grigson | shoulder | [16] |
| Michel Guérard | shoulder | [17] |
| Edouard de Pomaine | breast | [18] |
| Joël Robuchon | collar, shoulder or knuckle, and either tendron or breast | [19] |
| Michel Roux, Jr. | breast | [20] |
| Louis Saulnier | shoulder or tendron | [21] |
| Anne Willan | shoulder | [4] |
| Clifford Wright | breast | [22] |
In older recipes the veal was roast and allowed to go cold before being sliced or chopped, covered in a white sauce and reheated. [23] Eliza Acton's 1858 recipe includes mushrooms gently sautéed in butter and served over the veal with Sauce Tournée (also called velouté). [24] There was at one time some question of how blanquettes were to be distinguished from fricassées. In 1960 The Times commented:
According to Montagne, blanquette de veau is usually served with rice à la créole but may also be served with celeriac, halved celery hearts, carrots, braised parsnips or leeks, braised cucumber, braised lettuce or lettuce hearts. [2] Pasta or potatoes are sometimes served instead of rice, and Escoffier recommends noodles. [14]
Espagnole sauce is a basic brown sauce, and is one of the mother sauces of classic French cooking. In the early 19th century the chef Antonin Carême included it in his list of the basic sauces of French cooking. In the early 20th century Auguste Escoffier named it as one of the five sauces at the core of France's cuisine.
French cuisine is the cooking traditions and practices from France. In the 14th century, Guillaume Tirel, a court chef known as "Taillevent", wrote Le Viandier, one of the earliest recipe collections of medieval France. In the 17th century, chefs François Pierre La Varenne and Marie-Antoine Carême spearheaded movements that shifted French cooking away from its foreign influences and developed France's own indigenous style.
Suprême sauce is a classic and popular "daughter sauce" of French cuisine. It consists of velouté, a "mother sauce", thickened with cream and strained.
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Quiche Lorraine is a savoury French tart with a filling of cream, eggs, and bacon or ham, in an open pastry case. It was little known outside the French region of Lorraine until the mid-20th century. As its popularity spread, nationally and internationally, the addition of cheese became commonplace, although it has been criticised as inauthentic. It may be served hot, warm or cold.
Chateaubriand is a dish that traditionally consists of a large front cut fillet of tenderloin grilled between two lesser pieces of meat that are discarded after cooking. While the term originally referred to the preparation of the dish, Auguste Escoffier named the specific front cut of the tenderloin the Chateaubriand.
A velouté sauce is a savory sauce that is made from a roux and a light stock. It is one of the "mother sauces" of French cuisine listed by chef Auguste Escoffier in the early twentieth century. Velouté is French for 'velvety'.
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Daube is a French slow-cooked stew, usually of beef, but other meat is sometimes used. The best-known is the bœuf en daube à la provençale, a Provençal stew made with cheaper cuts of beef braised in wine, with vegetables, garlic and herbs, and traditionally cooked in a daubière–a braising pot.
Beef bourguignon or bœuf bourguignon, also called beef Burgundy, and bœuf à la Bourguignonne, is a French beef stew braised in red wine, often red Burgundy, and beef stock, typically flavored with carrots, onions, garlic, and a bouquet garni, and garnished with pearl onions, mushrooms. A similar dish using a piece of braised beef with the same garnish is pièce de bœuf à la bourguignonne.
Pot-au-feu is a French dish of slowly boiled meat and vegetables, usually served as two courses: first the broth (bouillon) and then the meat (bouilli) and vegetables. The dish is familiar throughout France and has many regional variations. The best-known have beef as the main meat, but pork, chicken, and sausage are also used.
Fricassee or fricassée is a stew made with pieces of meat that have been browned in butter then served in a sauce flavored with the cooking stock. Fricassee is usually made with chicken, veal or rabbit, with variations limited only by what ingredients the cook has at hand.
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Navarin is a French ragoût (stew) of lamb or mutton. If made with lamb and vegetables available fresh in the spring, it is called navarin printanier. The dish was familiar in French cookery well before it acquired the name "navarin" in the mid-19th century; there are several theories about the origin of the current name.
Normande sauce, also referred to as Normandy sauce and sauce Normande, is a culinary sauce prepared with velouté, fish velouté or fish stock, cream, butter and egg yolk as primary ingredients. Some versions may be prepared using both fish velouté and fish stock. Some may be prepared simply using a velouté base and the addition of cream, which are cooked together. Cider or dry white wine may also be used as primary ingredients.
Chicken chasseur is a French dish, known in France as poulet chasseur, poulet à la chasseur or poulet sauté chasseur. It consists of fried chicken served hot, with sauce chasseur, which is based on mushrooms, onions or shallots, tomatoes and wine, and may also contain stock and various herbs.
Chaudfroid sauce, also spelled as chaud-froid sauce, is a culinary sauce that can be prepared using a reduction of boiled meat carcasses and other ingredients. Simpler preparations of the sauce omit the use of meat, with some variations using sauces such as espagnole, allemande or velouté as a base. Chaudfroid sauce is typically served cold, atop cold meats and cold meat-based dishes such as galantine and terrine.
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