Traditional Food

Posts Tagged ‘French’

www.cookingrecipestv.com – Chef Brian prepares a classic french recipe “Ratatouille”. This eggplant recipe is quick, easy and quite healthy. Enjoy, Chef Brian

Product Description
The various regions of France contribute to the highly admired and delectable epicurean tradition featured in this comprehensive collection of recipes. Numerous exciting traditional and contemporary dishes illustrated with over 800 full-color photographs, as well as regional favorites and specialties, capture the essence of French food with recipes suitable for every occasion throughout the year. The book’s accessible format and the professional cook’s tips and hi… More >>

The French Recipe Cookbook: Over 200 Authentic and Inspiring Dishes, Shown Step-by-Step

Despite new trends, hype and marketing, tradition has never been stronger. In France, good food still means authentic cooking by using natural products from diverse regions. This is how we celebrate human being by offering the best food to all our senses.
For more details go to:  www.tailgating-recipe.com cooking home-made food and eating at the table make your appetite grow stronger. The challenge is to combine ingredients together to get the best taste out of them. However anyone from anywhere can explore the world of french cooking. To start with, let’s find out what french people enjoy to eat.

Here are the top 10 most popular recipes in France:

Roast Chicken
Indeed roast chicken is not a notorious french recipe but cooked everywhere around the world from Asia and Africa to America. However it is the most popular french dish. Roast chicken is not stuffed inside. The secret is to baste the poultry several times during roasting with butter and cooking oil and to add an onion in the roasting pan. Roast chicken is traditionally served with potatoes and green beans.

Boeuf bourguignon
The most famous beef stew in France. Boeuf bourguignon is a traditional recipe from Burgundy. A recipe that French people use to cook at least once every winter. The beef meat is cooked in a red wine sauce, obviously a red wine from Burgundy. Bacon, onions, mushrooms and carrots add flavor to the recipe. But thyme, garlic and beef stock are essential to cook a good boeuf bourguignon.

Mussels mariniere
A typical summer recipe very popular along the Atlantic and Mediterranean coast. Mussels are fresh and cooked in a white wine sauce with parsley, thyme, bay leaf and onion. For help visit: www.apples-recipes.com it takes only 5 minutes to cook a tasteful mussel’s mariniere. The secret is to season carefully the meal and to discard any mussels that don’t look good enough.

Sole meuniere
Although sole is an expensive fish, the taste is so elegant that it is considered as the noblest fish. Sole meuniere is a recipe from Normandy. The fish is cooked in a butter sauce with a little bit of flour and lemon juice. Sole is traditionally served with rice or green vegetables.

Pot au feu
A typical family meal coming once again from Normandy. Pot au feu is a boiled beef with pork, chicken and vegetables. It takes about 4 hours an a half to cook as the beef has to simmer slowly to extract all its flavor. Pot au feu is also called Potee Normande in France.

Sauerkraut
Quite similar to the german sauerkraut, the french sauerkraut called choucroute comes from Alsace. However the French recipe can be traced back to 6 centuries ago! Sauerkraut is a fermented cabbage. Commonly sauerkraut includes sausages, pork knuckle and bacon. Two essential ingredients are Alsatian white wine and juniper berries.

Veal stew
Called Blanquette de veal in France, this is another stew recipe from Normandy. The veal meat simmers in white sauce – as Blanquette from Blanc stands for white in French – with mushrooms and onions. The white sauce is made of egg yolks, whipping cream and lemon juice. Veal stew is usually served with rice.

Lamb navarin
Another stew but this one is made of lamb meat. It is also called spring lamb as it comes with green vegetables available in spring. Navarin comes from navet which stands for turnips in French. Other ingredients are tomatoes, lamb stock and carrots. This stew takes less time to simmer than any other.

Cassoulet
A strange recipe that English people often confuse with their traditional breakfast! A traditional meal from south west of France. Each village has its own recipe but it always includes beans and meats. Cassoulet is a rich combination of white beans and depending on the village lamb, pork, mutton or sausage meat. Cassoulet is the cornerstone of the French paradox study describing why people from south west of France suffer less than others from infarcts.

Bouillabaisse
Bouillabaisse is closely linked with the city of Marseille on the Mediterranean coast. The recipe is a fish soup from local fish and seafood products including crabs, scorpion fish, monk fish and others. Provencal herbs and olive oil are essential. For a long time, the recipe was a secret jealously kept by the people from Marseille.

Traditional French food has a global reputation for being both extremely palatable and highly distinctive. The French have always been known for their attention to detail and the care taken over even relatively basic recipes. The very words ‘French’ and ‘cuisine’ seem to be paired up as beautifully as ‘duck and ‘confit’. Indeed. Even the word ‘gourmet’ is French for ‘wine taster’, and if there is one thing the French do superbly besides creating a good meal it is to create a fine wine to go with it.

Whether it is the association between the French language and the richness of French cuisine I’m not sure, but even the names of some of the more traditional gourmet French foods are enough to make the mouth salivate in anticipation – just try rolling the sound of a fine French goose and duck foie gras or a cassoulet perhaps and you’ll almost be ready to choose your complimentary wine.

But although it’s easy to lump all French cuisine into the same pot, as it were, there are in fact very distinct areas of France, each of which has contributed its own distinctive tastes, and cooking methods. France is a large country, and one would hardly expect the culinary and gourmet influences to be uniform throughout. Indeed, it is not just geography which has had an influence on French cooking methods, but modern restaurant requirements have also made their mark. Many French recipes require slow cooking or laborious preparation – neither of which proves terribly convenient in the heat and steam of a frenetic Parisian kitchen during the peak season.

The areas of France, and the distinct branches of what we would term traditional French food include the north west and south east regions, and the southern and south western regions. Although there are general similarities and shared characteristics, what we might refer to as gourmet French foods are more likely to originate from a distinct area of France. For example, one of the more distinctive aspects of the French cooking in the north eastern vicinity is the high use of milk, cream and butter. Many of the traditional French food originated here tends to butter ingredients quite heavily, and so this can have the effect of creating a rather rich meal. It is also quite noticeable that apples often feature quite prominently as a major ingredient in recipes from this area.

It would only be natural for France’s gourmet foods to be heavily influenced by its neighbours, and this is certainly true for the south eastern regions of France, which border Germany. There are clear Germanic influences in the styles of food and choice of ingredients around this whole area, including the generous use of lard as well as foods more commonly associated with German cooking such as sauerkraut and pork sausages.

When one thinks of traditional French food and gourmet French foods one tends to consider those meals more traditionally served in French restaurants, and these recipes generally originate from the south of France. Such recipes tend to be much lighter, with much less use of butter and lard, and easier on less accustomed palates. Think of a traditional French meal which one might enjoy at a restaurant and the chances are high that it originated in the southern region.

Travel further towards the west and you will encounter yet another traditional style of French cooking, almost Spanish in its influence, with a higher use of light oils such as olive oil as well as a much more widespread use of herbs. It is also noticeable in this region that tomatoes and tomato based products are used much more. These traditional French foods tend to be lighter, and again receive more widespread popularity.

But although the regions of France all have played their part in developing recipes and styles of cooking, there has been another influence which has affected what we tend to view as traditional gourmet French food today. The usual methods of cooking meals in France takes time, and in busy restaurants this just isn’t possible. This has given rise to a new style of cooking which relies on much quicker cooking methods, and this has become known as cuisine nouvelle – literally new cooking. This style of cooking is not only quicker, but it generally is served in much smaller portions, as well as incorporating plate decoration and dressing of the meal for presentation.

Today, what we might refer to as traditional French foods are more than likely either recipes which originate from a very distinctive region of France, or have been borne out of the newer style of cooking which has surfaced in the last four decades. But whether the style of cooking is traditional or modern, and whether the ingredients are regional or more widely accepted, there can be little doubt that gourmet French foods have had a major influence on the way much of the world views fine food and quality cooking.