Quenelle de brochet sauce Nantua — Lyon, France

Quenelle de brochet sauce Nantua — Lyon, France

Lyon, France

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The quenelle is both the dish of Lyon's bouchons and of the city's haute cuisine. Its noble version, made with pike, owes itself to the proximity of the Dombes ponds and Lake Nantua, whose crayfish give the sauce. The pike flesh is pounded with a panade — a cooked mixture of flour, butter and milk — and eggs, shaped with a spoon, poached in simmering water where it swells, then coated with Nantua sauce and baked, where it swells further still. A good quenelle is light, almost soufflé-like, and the sauce should have the coral colour of crayfish. It's a Sunday dish, long to make and quickly eaten.

Preparation

  1. 01

    Panade: heat the milk with 50 g of butter, add the flour all at once, and dry it out for 2 minutes. Let cool.

  2. 02

    Blend the pike with the panade, eggs, salt, pepper and nutmeg into a smooth paste. Chill for 2 hours. Shape into quenelles using two spoons, and poach for 10 minutes in simmering water.

  3. 03

    Sauce: sauté the crayfish in butter, flambé with the cognac, add the tomato paste and cream, cook for 10 minutes, and strain through a fine sieve, pressing well. Shell a few crayfish for the garnish.

  4. 04

    Arrange the quenelles in a dish, coat with the sauce, and bake for 20 minutes at 200°C (400°F): they should swell.

Where this version sits

A single, final coordinate: Lyon, France. Another version of the same dish, elsewhere, gets its own point.

Photo: Fryke27 — CC BY-SA 3.0

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