Quenelle De Brochet appears as a signature dish in 1 France cities. See each city's local variant and where to eat it.
Quenelle de brochet sauce Nantua · Lyon
The quenelle de brochet is a poached pike dumpling the size of a fist, airy from egg white folded into the fish forcemeat, served in a crayfish cream sauce called Nantua after the Ain town where the ecrevisses come from.
The quenelle appeared in Lyon records from the 18th century as a way to stretch expensive river pike. Bouchon cooks refined the texture across generations until the version Eugenie Brazier served in the 1920s became the standard: three times the size of an egg, blond on the exterior, molten within. The sauce Nantua, made from ecrevisses of the Ain and Dombes, links the dish geographically to the rivers that drain into the Rhone east of the city. Today the quenelle carries AOC application status under the Label Bouchons Lyonnais programme.
Where to eat in Lyon:
- Daniel et Denise Saint-Jean
- Le Garet
- Chez Paul