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Florentine (culinary term)

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Florentine or à la Florentine is a term from classic French cuisine that refers to dishes that typically include a base of cooked spinach, a protein component and Mornay sauce. Chicken Florentine is the most popular version. Because Mornay sauce is a derivation of béchamel sauce which includes roux and requires time and skill to prepare correctly, many contemporary recipes use simpler cream based sauces.[1][2][3]

History

Culinary lore attributes the term to 1533, when Catherine de Medici of Florence married Henry II of France. She supposedly brought a staff of chefs, lots of kichen equipment and a love of spinach to Paris, and popularized Florentine style dishes. Food historians have debunked this story, and Italian influence on French cuisine long predates this marriage.[4] Pierre Franey considered this theory apocryphal, but embraced the term Florentine.[5]

Auguste Escoffier included a recipe for Sole Florentine in his 1903 classic Le guide culinaire, translated into English as A Guide to Modern Cookery. It is recipe 831 in that translation. Escoffier called for poaching the fish in butter and fumet, a stock made of fish bones, cooking the spinach in butter, covering the dish with Mornay sauce, garnishing it with grated cheese, and finishing it in an oven or salamander.[6] In his 1936 cookbook L'Art culinaire moderne which was first translated for American cooks in 1966 as Modern French Culinary Art, Henri-Paul Pellaprat included five recipes for spinach based Florentine dishes with Mornay sauce. The protein components were chicken breasts, cod fillets, sweetbreads, stuffed lamb breast and oysters.[7] Craig Claiborne published a recipe for Oysters Florentine with Mornay sauce in The New York Times in 1958.[8]

Variations

A quiche containing spinach is often called "quiche Florentine".[9] Poached or soft cooked eggs served on spinach with a Mornay sauce or equivalent is often called "eggs Florentine".[10]

Chicken Florentine

Chicken Florentine gained popularity in the United States as early as 1931, although the quality of the dish was uneven, and canned mushroom soup was sometimes used as a quick sauce.[11] By the 1960s and 1970s, the general quality of the dish had deteriorated to "casserole" and "wedding banquet" food.[12]

Writing in The New York Times in 1971, Claiborne praised a restaurant version of Chicken Florentine, describing the chicken as "batter‐cooked and served with mushrooms in a lemon sauce".[13] Contemporary cookbook authors are attempting to "restore" the dish to "its elegant roots",[14] with "clearer, brighter flavors".[15]

References

  1. ^ de Laurentis, Giada. "Chicken Florentine Style". Food Network. Retrieved September 12, 2021.
  2. ^ Gaines, Joanna (April 3, 2020). "Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner: One-Skillet Chicken Florentine from Joanna Gaines' New Cookbook". Parade. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  3. ^ Zumstein, Debra; Kazary, Will. Carolina Cooking: Recipes from the Region's Best Chefs. p. 130. ISBN 9781423602033.
  4. ^ Campanini, Antonella. "The Illusive Story Of Catherine de' Medici: A Gastronomic Myth". The New Gastronome. University of Gastronomic Sciences of Pollenzo. Retrieved September 12, 2021.
  5. ^ Franey, Pierre (October 5, 1983). "60-minute Gourmet: Chicken breasts enhanced with a spinach stuffing". New York Times. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  6. ^ Escoffier, Auguste (1907). A Guide to Modern Cookery. W. Heinemann. p. 284.
  7. ^ Pellaprat, Henri-Paul (1966). Kramer, René; White, David (eds.). Modern French Culinary Art. World Publishing Company. pp. 444–445, 526, 585–586, 636, 653. Adapted for the American Kichen by Avanelle Day
  8. ^ Claiborne, Craig (December 11, 1958). "Frozen Vegetable Dishes Asset for Spur-of-the-Moment Suppers; Seven Products Are Introduced - Ready To Serve In Jiffy". New York Times. Retrieved September 12, 2021.
  9. ^ The Food Guys (May 5, 2019). "This Recipe For Quiche Florentine Gets A Thumbs-Up From Popeye". Montana Public Radio. Retrieved September 12, 2021.
  10. ^ Goodfriend, Wendy (September 10, 2011). "Mollet Eggs Florentine". KQED. San Francisco. Retrieved September 12, 2021.
  11. ^ "Easy Chicken Florentine". Campbell's. Campbell Soup Company. 2014. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  12. ^ Staff (2020). The Complete Cook's Country TV Show Cookbook Includes Season 13 Recipes: Every Recipe and Every Review from All Thirteen Seasons. America's Test Kitchen. p. 30. ISBN 9781948703383.
  13. ^ Claiborne, Craig (March 5, 1971). "The Food Is Fine but Oh, the Decibels". New York Times. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  14. ^ Staff (2021). The Chicken Bible: Say Goodbye to Boring Chicken with 500 Recipes for Easy Dinners, Braises, Wings, Stir-Fries, and So Much More. America's Test Kitchen. p. 199. ISBN 9781948703550.
  15. ^ America's Test Kitchen (February 4, 2019). "Rethinking Chicken Florentine with clearer, brighter flavors". Associated Press. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
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