A crépinette is a small, flattened

sausage A sausage is a type of meat product usually made from ground meat—often pork, beef, or poultry—along with salt, spices and other flavourings. Other ingredients, such as grains or breadcrumbs may be included as fillers or extenders. ...

, sometimes referred to as a sausage parcel. It is similar in shape to a sausage patty, circular, and flattened. It is made from minced or ground

pork Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the domestic pig (''Sus domesticus''). It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BCE. Pork is eaten both freshly cooked and preserved ...

turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...

veal Veal is the meat of calves, in contrast to the beef from older cattle. Veal can be produced from a calf of either sex and any breed, however most veal comes from young male calves of dairy breeds which are not used for breeding. Generally, v ...

lamb Lamb or The Lamb may refer to: * A young sheep * Lamb and mutton, the meat of sheep Arts and media Film, television, and theatre * ''The Lamb'' (1915 film), a silent film starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in his screen debut * ''The Lamb'' (1918 ...

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adu ...

, and can even be made from

truffles A truffle is the fruiting body of a subterranean ascomycete fungus, predominantly one of the many species of the genus ''Tuber''. In addition to ''Tuber'', many other genera of fungi are classified as truffles including '' Geopora'', '' Pe ...

. Crépinettes are wrapped in

caul fat Caul fat, also known as lace fat, omentum, or fat netting, is the thin membrane which surrounds the internal organs of some animals, such as cows, sheep, and pigs, also known as the greater omentum. It is used as a casing for sausages, roul ...

, rather than wrapped in a casing. It is usually cooked with an outer coating of bread and sautéed in butter.

Name

The word ''crépine'' () is French for "pig's caul". The name originated in the second half of the 13th century as "a small ornamental crêpe", being derived from the word ''

crêpe A crêpe or crepe ( or , , Quebec French: ) is a very thin type of pancake. Crêpes are usually one of two varieties: ''sweet crêpes'' () or ''savoury galettes'' (). They are often served with a wide variety of fillings such as cheese, ...

''. In cookbooks, the term ''crépinette'' is sometimes used to indicate the contents of the crépinette only. This is the same as other countries where we find crépinette, sometimes spelled ''crepinette'', to describe both the contents and the dish itself.

Definition

A crépinette is a mixture of minced meat stuffed in intestinal membrane. Although it has a different casing from sausage, it is often described as a sausage dish. It is also described as a round and flat dish in a number of French dictionaries. The crépinette distinguishes itself by being balled meat wrapped in thin slices of meat.

Composition

The stuffing of the crépinette can be made of ground pork, chicken fillets, finely ground game birds (partridge, woodcock, pigeon), and also lamb sweetbreads, calf kidneys, fillets of lark or rabbit, and sliced eel. Viard, however, gives recipes where the contents of the crépinette are not ground but entire pieces of meat.

Cooking

The crépinette is cooked in a pan or on a grill. For Christmas, crépinettes are served with oysters by the oyster farmers of the Marennes-Oléron basin; the same happens in Bordelais where an expert alternates the tasting of a fresh oyster and a hot crépinette.

References

From ''The New

Food Lover's Companion ''Food Lover’s Companion'' is a book containing culinary terminology and conversion tables for cooking. Five editions have been published as of 2019. The main section of the work is an A-to-Z list of defined culinary terminology, followed by ...

'' 3rd ed Sharon Tyler Herbst 2001 p 179

External links