Pignons de Pin - Pine Nuts from Pine Cones. Pine Nuts in French cuisine.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

 

     
Stone pine nuts.
Also called umbrella pine nuts

Texture is just as important as taste in French cuisine, and fresh pine nuts add texture with a soft buttery taste. Toasted or grilled pine nuts add a slight crunch and a nutty flavor.

France’s love for pine nuts began with Catherine de Medici, who brought Italian tastes and techniques to France.  Then, at the age of 14, she came from Florence, Italy, in 1533 to marry France’s future King Henry II.  One of the recipes she brought was Italy’s original pesto sauce with pine nuts.  (Pesto sauce on French menus is pesto or pistou). 
   
The stone or umbrella pine, home to the best pine nuts.
www.flickr.com/photos/29882791@N02/8299375995/

Nearly all pine trees have pine cones, and from the outside, many look very similar; however, finding the cone with the tastiest nut is not that simple.  The best pine nuts come from the stone pine and its cones, seen in the picture below; the tree is also called the umbrella pine. No serious French or Italian chef would ever consider using any other pine nut.
 
Balance is important and in salads, pine nuts create harmony between soft, springy vegetables and other crunchy ingredients. 
   
Look at the role of pine nuts in French salads:
       
Salade de Chèvre Chaud sur Toast,  Lardons, Haricots Verts, Pignon de Pin –A salad of warm goat’s cheese served on toast accompanied by bacon pieces, fresh green beans, and pine nuts.
 
Salade de Roquette aux Oignons Caramélisés et Pignons Grilles – A rocket salad served with caramelized onions and grilled pine nuts. 

Salade de Jeunes Pousses aux Pignons de Pin Torréfiés – A salad of young vegetable sprouts and leaves prepared with toasted pine nuts.  N.B. Grilled, toasted or roasted pine nuts have a crunchy texture and a stronger taste than fresh nuts.
   
The stone pine cone
 
The stone pine had been growing all around the Mediterranean for tens of thousands of years before the Catherine de Medici brought the recipe for pesto sauce to France. Furthermore, long before Catherine came those two Mediterranean imperialists, the Greeks and Romans had come to France with their own pine nut recipes. The Greeks came to France around 600 BCE, where they founded the port that would later be called Marseilles, followed five hundred years later by the Romans who colonized the whole of France beginning in 53 BCE.  For pine nuts in a French cuisine, the fight was led in the 1600s by François Pierre de la Varenne, who broke with Italian traditions and added new interpretations that would bring pine nuts into the developing French cuisine.  

Pine nuts on French menus:

Filet de Caille Poêlé Servi sur une Salade Tiède, Pignons de Pin et Coulis de Framboise et Balsamique - Lightly fried quail’s breast served on a warm salad with pine nuts and flavored with pureed raspberries with balsamic vinegar.
  
Gambas Marinées à l'Ail, Huile d'Olive, Citron, Ciboulette, Pignons de Pin, Choux Chinois – Large shrimps flavored with garlic and marinated in olive oil, lemon, chives, and served with pine nuts and crunchy Chinese cabbage.
 
Huîtres Chaudes Gratinées aux Pignons de Pin Cèpes et Jambon Serrano – Warmed oysters lightly covered with cheese and browned under the grill served with pine nuts, French porcini mushrooms, and serrano ham. (Serrano ham is a dry cured ham; the name is generic and translates as mountain ham).

Soupe Froide de Concombre à la Menthe, Feta et Pignons de Pin Torréfiés – A cold cucumber soup flavored with mint, feta cheese, and roasted pine nuts.

Suprême de Pintade Label Rouge aux Pignons de Pin et Orange, Légumes  - Breast of red label guinea fowl prepared with an orange sauce with pine nuts accompanied by vegetables. (Label Rouge, red label poultry are among the best that France has to offer).

  
Toasted stone pine nuts
www.flickr.com/photos/c32/4656900305/
  
There are stone pine forests all over France from the department of Haut-Rhine in the region of Le Grande Est in the north to the center in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, and down to the north of Corsica. Despite all the trees, most of the stone pine nuts in French cuisine and in French supermarkets will have come from Spain; they cost less.
  
The cost of pine nuts

Pine nuts must be extracted from the pine cones by hand, and that makes them expensive. Most of the cheaper pine nuts come from the Korean pine, (botanic name pinus koraiensis), and are they are imported from China.  (The European stone pine’s botanic name is pinus pinea).  The Chinese pine nuts are pear-shaped and shorter and have been an important part of Chinese cuisine for far longer than the stone pine nuts in Europe.  With arguments over the taste and texture of different pine nuts going on forever most French chefs still insist that the stone pine nuts are better; they use them despite prices that can be five or six times higher than the Chinese pine nuts. 
   
Chinese pine nuts
  
Are there organic pine nuts?

Pine nuts come from trees that will never have seen an insecticide and so long as they are handled correctly they automatically qualify as organic.
  

The long pine needles from the stone pine.
www.flickr.com/photos/96064256@N04/28006367625/

Pin Parasol, Pin Pignon, Pinier, Pin d’Italie - The stone pine, parasol pine, umbrella pine,  or  Italian stone pine in the languages of France’s neighbors:
(Catalan - pi pinyer, pi ver), (Dutch - parasolden), (German – pinie, Italienische steinkiefer), (Italian - Pino domestico ), (Spanish -pino piñonero, pino doncel), (Botanic name - pinus pinea).

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Just add the word, words, or phrase that you are searching for to the words "Behind the French Menu" and search with Google. Behind the French Menu’s links include hundreds of words, names, and phrases that are seen on French menus. There are over 470 articles that include over 4,000 French dishes with English translations and explanations.
    

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Copyright 2010, 2018, 2023.


  

Rouge des Prés AOP – The Very Best of French Beef. Rouge des Prés in French Cuisine.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

 
The Rouge des Prés AOP breed of cattle, originally called the Maine-Anjou, come from the old Province of Anjou, now included in the department of Maine et Loire. (Dining in the Maine et Loire, France).
  
One of the only four AOP cattle in France.
 
When the Rouge des Prés AOP is on the menu, you will be able to taste the very best of French beef. France grades its cattle and those with an AOP are the top of the top. For seven months every year, the Rouge des Prés freely graze on fresh grass, wild herbs and flowers. In the winter the same cattle are brought into the barns where they are may only be fed the dried grasses from the area in which they graze in summer. Only in the 120 days before they go to market may grains and cereals be added to their food.  Your cut of beef will not come from a young, stringy, or tough piece of beef; all Rouge des Prés cattle must be at least two and a half years old before they go to market.  That’s enough time for them to have tender, tasty, gently marbled the meat. Drive through the department of Maine et Loire in the spring, summer, and autumn, and you will see the red and white to solid red or black cattle grazing. 
 
The breed was always dual-purpose, but beef is their primary use nowadays. Nevertheless, it’s not uncommon for farms to keep some of their Rouge des Prés cattle for milking.
  
Angers, home to the Rouge des Prés.

None of the Rouge des Prés cattle will ever have been exposed to antibiotics or growth hormones, and by law, the calves must be raised by their mothers,   The farms where these cows come from are nothing like the vast UK and USA  feedlots where 1,000 plus cows are being fattened at any one time. The average size farm for the Rouge des Prés will have forty to fifty cows, and for each and every cow, the farmer must have, by law, one hectare, 10,000 sq meters (12,000 sq yards). The farm must have more land for bulls and calves.  For the best cuts of French beef choose the Rouge des Prés.

Rouge des Prés AOC beef on French Menus:

Carpaccio de Bœuf Rouge des Près au Jus de Yuzu, Frites – A beef Carpaccio from the Rouge Des Près beef prepared with yuzu juice and served with French fries, chips. (The yuzu is a Chinese or Tibetan citrus cross which is very aromatic. The Japanese popularized the yuzu, but the fruits on most French menus are now, in season, grown in France).
   
Le Pièce de Bœuf  Rouge des Prés aux Morilles et Champignons à la Crème –  A Pièce de Bœuf means the butcher’s cut, a cut that a butcher would take home for his or her family as it is appreciated for its real value. Here, the beef is served with a creamy morel mushroom and button mushroom sauce. The French butchers’ cuts are tender and flavorsome cuts from the rump that only French butchers have the patience to prepare.
 
Onglet De Boeuf Rouge Des Prés, Sauce Roquefort, Pommes Rissolées. -  A Rouge Des Prés US hanger steak or London broil, in the UK a skirt steak, here served with a Roquefort cheese sauce and cubed potatoes fried in butter. Pommes Rissolées are the closest French cuisine gets to North American hash browns.
   
Onglet De Boeuf
www.flickr.com/photos/68147320@N02/36040895761/
 
Entrecôte Rouge des Prés Grillée Sauce Bordelaise, Girolles Fraîches – A grilled Rouge de Prés rib-eye steak served with a Sauce Bordelaise and prepared with chanterelle mushrooms. Sauce Bordelaise is a red Bordeaux wine sauce made with veal stock, butter, shallots, and herbs.

Filet De Bœuf  Maine d’Anjou Rôti, Écrasé de Pommes de Terre à l’Olive de Nyons, Sauce Au Vin Rouge De Saumur Champigny – A fillet of Rouge des Prés, (still on this menu as Main-Anjou beef).   This is a cut from the USA  tenderloin, accompanied by mashed potatoes prepared with Nyon olives and served with a red Saumur Champigny wine sauce. The Olives de Nyons AOP are roundish, black to violet colored Provençal olives.  The Saumur Champigny is one of the best red wines in the region.
   
A beef fillet, a cut from the tenderloin.
www.flickr.com/photos/nwongpr/29463060222/

Tartare De Bœuf  La Rouge Des Près  Aux Parfums De Truffe d'Été Steak Tatar from Rouge Des Près beef flavored with the summer truffle. The black summer truffle is a lightly scented truffle.

Despite the cattle’s hundred-year reputation when the farmers of the Maine Anjou cattle applied for an AOC (before the AOP) and all the tests were passed the farmers were then told to change the breed’s name. .After many arguments, the farmers agreed to rename their Maine-Anjou cattle the Rouge Des Prés (which means the red meadow cattle).  Despite the name change in 2003, some chefs still put Maine-Anjou on their menus.  Why the change? I do not know; the only competition for the name that I have seen is the very tasty, farm-raised pigeon, the Royal Anjou pigeon.
  
Ballotine of  Royal Anjou Pigeon,
Black Pudding, and Spiced Juices.
      
The market garden of France.

Maine et Loire is in the Pays de Loire; the region justly referred to as the market garden of France.  The City of Angers sits across the Maine and Loire Rivers and is very close to another five. Not surprisingly, the vineyards of Anjou, the Angevine vineyards, are the largest in the whole Loire Valley.
From this region comes the Poire Anjou, the Anjou pear, and the tasty Reine-Claude plum, the greengage plum, that was brought to England from here in the early 18th century by Sir Thomas Gage. Also from here comes the much appreciated Volaille de Loué, Label Rouge, red label, poultry. The Volaille de Loué poultry includes organically raised chickens, chicken’s eggs, ducks, geese, turkeys, and guinea fowl.
  
Anjou pears
www.flickr.com/photos/74444001@N00/11240994845/

Enjoying the wines of Maine et Anjou

Many dishes on Anjou menus will include Angevine wines, and six different wines roads will take you through villages and wine roads. The website is only in French but easily understood with the Google or Bing translate apps:

 
Anjou has over 35 different AOP wines. The most well-known include: Anjou Rouge, red; Anjou Gamay, a red wine best drunk young like a Nouveau Beaujolais; Anjou Villages, red; Cabernet d'Anjou, rose; Rosé d'Anjou, rose and Anjou Blanc, white. From the Anjou, Saumur wines come: Cabernet de Saumur, rose; Coteaux de Saumur, a medium sweet white; Saumur-Champigny, red; Cabernet de Saumur, rose; Crémant de Loire sparkling white and rose wines.
   
Anjou was an ancient province in France with its capital the city of Angers; the home of the Angevines. King Henry II of England, an ancestor of the reigning British king, was born to a French Angevine family who ruled Anjou. It was only during the French revolution that Anjou was included in the new department of Maine-et-Loire.

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Searching for the meaning of words, names or phrases
on
French menus?

Just add the word, words, or phrase that you are searching for to the words "Behind the French Menu" and search with Google. Behind the French Menu’s links include hundreds of words, names, and phrases that are seen on French menus. There are over 470 post that include over 4,000 French dishes with English translations and explanations.
    

Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman 
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com
Copyright 2010, 2018, 2023.

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