An elegantly plated Norman dish on a dark wooden table
❧ Poulet Vallée d'Auge
From the recipe collection
Cuisine Normande · The Norman Table

Norman French Cooking Without Vegetable Oil

Come into the farmhouse kitchens of Normandy, where chicken simmers in cider and cream, sole arrives glossed with butter, and every tart begins in the apple orchard. Honest ingredients and deep flavor, the way the coast and the pastures have always cooked.

Explore the Recipes
Beurre❧ Crème Fraîche❧ Saindoux
Beurre

Butter of the Pastures

Normandy's kitchens were built on butter churned from the milk of its salt meadow pastures. Every sauce, sauté, and pastry in this collection begins with it, never with a refined seed oil.

Crème

Thick Crème Fraîche

Crème fraîche, the ripened cream of the Norman dairy, finishes a pan of chicken or leeks with a silkiness no refined seed oil could ever offer.

Jamais

Never Vegetable Oil

No seed oils, no shortcuts. Only the traditional fats that the farmhouses and harbor kitchens of Normandy have trusted for generations: butter, cream, and a spoon of good lard.

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From Our Kitchen

Norman French Recipes

Six beloved dishes from the orchards, pastures, and harbors of Normandy, each cooked with the honest fats that bring out the best in every ingredient.

Pays d'Auge Poulet Vallee d'Auge, chicken in a golden cider cream sauce on a serving plate

Poulet Vallée d'Auge

Chicken in cider and cream

1 hr 15·4 servings·Medium

The signature dish of the Auge valley. Chicken browned in butter, simmered in dry cider with apples and shallots, and finished with a generous spoon of crème fraîche.

Ingredients

  • 1 whole chicken, about 1.6 kg, cut into 8 pieces
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 60 g butter
  • 1 tbsp lard (or more butter)
  • 3 shallots, finely chopped
  • 2 firm apples, peeled and cut into wedges
  • 400 ml dry cider
  • 150 ml chicken stock
  • 200 ml crème fraîche
  • 2 sprigs of thyme and 1 bay leaf

Instructions

  1. Season the chicken pieces generously with salt and pepper on all sides.
  2. Melt the butter and lard in a wide heavy pot and brown the chicken in batches, skin side first, until deep gold. Set aside.
  3. Soften the shallots in the same pot for 3 minutes, then add the apple wedges and let them take a little color.
  4. Pour in the cider, scraping up the browned bits, then add the stock, thyme, and bay leaf.
  5. Return the chicken to the pot, cover, and simmer gently for 35 to 40 minutes until tender.
  6. Lift out the chicken and apples, then boil the sauce to reduce it by a third.
  7. Stir in the crème fraîche, warm through without boiling, and spoon the sauce over the chicken to serve.
Honfleur Sole a la Normande, a delicate fish fillet in a creamy butter sauce with herbs

Sole à la Normande

Sole in cider cream sauce

45 min·2 servings·Medium

The pride of the Norman coast. Fillets of sole poached gently in cider, then napped with a sauce of butter, crème fraîche, and the briny juice of mussels.

Ingredients

  • 4 sole fillets, about 120 g each
  • Salt and white pepper
  • 500 g mussels, scrubbed and debearded
  • 250 ml dry cider
  • 1 shallot, finely chopped
  • 80 g butter, divided
  • 1 tbsp plain flour
  • 150 ml crème fraîche
  • 100 g small cooked shrimp, peeled
  • 2 tbsp parsley, chopped, plus lemon to serve

Instructions

  1. Put the mussels in a hot pot with half the cider, cover, and steam 3 to 4 minutes until they open. Strain and keep the liquor, discarding any that stay shut.
  2. Season the sole fillets lightly and fold them in half, skinned side in.
  3. Soften the shallot in 20 g of the butter in a wide pan, lay in the sole, and add the remaining cider and the mussel liquor.
  4. Poach at a bare simmer for 5 to 6 minutes, then lift the fillets onto warm plates and keep them warm.
  5. Knead the remaining butter with the flour, whisk it into the simmering liquid, and let the sauce thicken for 2 minutes.
  6. Stir in the crème fraîche, shrimp, and shelled mussels and warm through gently.
  7. Spoon the sauce over the sole, shower with parsley, and serve with lemon.
La Ferme Poireaux a la creme, tender leeks in a creamy sauce in a rustic bowl

Poireaux à la Crème

Leeks in crème fraîche

35 min·4 servings·Easy

The great farmhouse vegetable dish of Normandy. Leeks stewed slowly in butter until melting, then folded through thick crème fraîche with a whisper of nutmeg.

Ingredients

  • 8 medium leeks, white and pale green parts
  • 70 g butter
  • 1 tsp salt, plus more to taste
  • White pepper, to taste
  • A grating of nutmeg
  • 3 tbsp water or light chicken stock
  • 200 ml crème fraîche
  • 1 tsp Dijon mustard (optional)
  • 2 tbsp chives, snipped
  • Toasted country bread, to serve

Instructions

  1. Split the leeks lengthwise, rinse well between the layers, and slice into 2 cm pieces.
  2. Melt the butter in a wide pan over gentle heat and add the leeks with the salt.
  3. Add the water or stock, cover, and stew softly for 18 to 20 minutes, stirring now and then, until completely tender but not browned.
  4. Uncover and let any extra liquid steam away.
  5. Stir in the crème fraîche and mustard if using, and warm through without boiling.
  6. Season with white pepper and nutmeg, scatter with chives, and serve warm with toasted bread.
Dieppe Marmite Dieppoise, a creamy Norman fish and shellfish stew in a deep bowl

Marmite Dieppoise

Fisherman's stew of Dieppe

1 hr·6 servings·Medium

The harbor supper of Dieppe. Firm white fish, mussels, and shrimp simmered with leeks and cider, drawn together with butter and cream into a pale golden stew.

Ingredients

  • 600 g firm white fish (monkfish, cod, or turbot), in large chunks
  • 500 g mussels, scrubbed
  • 200 g raw shrimp, peeled
  • 60 g butter
  • 2 leeks, white parts, finely sliced
  • 1 onion and 1 celery stalk, finely chopped
  • 300 ml dry cider
  • 500 ml fish stock
  • 200 ml crème fraîche
  • 1 bay leaf, a pinch of cayenne, salt, and parsley to finish

Instructions

  1. Melt the butter in a large pot and soften the leeks, onion, and celery for 8 minutes without coloring.
  2. Pour in the cider and let it bubble for 2 minutes, then add the fish stock, bay leaf, and cayenne.
  3. Simmer the broth gently for 15 minutes to marry the flavors.
  4. Add the white fish and cook at a bare simmer for 5 minutes.
  5. Add the mussels and shrimp, cover, and cook 4 minutes more until the shells open and the shrimp turn pink.
  6. Stir in the crème fraîche, warm through without boiling, and season with salt.
  7. Ladle into deep bowls, scatter with parsley, and serve with buttered bread.
Boulangerie La Fallue, a golden Norman brioche loaf resting on a bakery board

La Fallue

Norman crème fraîche brioche

3 hr·1 loaf·Medium

The old flat brioche of Normandy, enriched not only with butter but with crème fraîche. Dense, tender, and golden, it is sliced thick for breakfast or with a bowl of teurgoule.

Ingredients

  • 500 g bread flour
  • 7 g instant yeast
  • 70 g sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 120 ml warm whole milk
  • 2 eggs, room temperature
  • 100 g crème fraîche
  • 90 g soft butter, plus more for the tin
  • 1 egg yolk, for the glaze
  • 1 tbsp whole milk, for the glaze

Instructions

  1. Whisk the flour, yeast, sugar, and salt in a large bowl.
  2. Add the warm milk, eggs, and crème fraîche and mix to a shaggy dough.
  3. Knead in the soft butter a little at a time, then keep kneading about 10 minutes until smooth and elastic.
  4. Cover and let the dough rise 1 hour 30 minutes until doubled.
  5. Shape into a long oval loaf on a buttered tray, and let it rise again for 45 minutes.
  6. Brush with the yolk beaten with milk and score one long line down the center.
  7. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 25 to 30 minutes until deep golden, and cool before slicing thick.
Le Verger Tarte Normande, a warm apple tart with golden custard served on a plate

Tarte Normande

Orchard apple custard tart

1 hr 30·8 servings·Medium

The dessert of the Norman orchard. Apple wedges arranged in an all butter crust, drenched in a cream and egg custard, and baked until the edges catch a deep gold.

Ingredients

  • 250 g plain flour
  • 140 g cold butter, cubed, plus more for the tin
  • 60 g sugar, for the pastry
  • 1 egg yolk and 2 tbsp cold water
  • 4 firm apples, peeled and cut into wedges
  • 2 whole eggs
  • 100 g sugar, for the custard
  • 200 ml crème fraîche
  • 1 tsp vanilla sugar
  • 30 g ground almonds (optional)

Instructions

  1. Rub the cold butter into the flour and 60 g sugar until sandy, then bring together with the yolk and water. Chill 30 minutes.
  2. Roll the pastry and line a buttered 24 cm tart tin, pricking the base with a fork.
  3. Scatter the ground almonds over the base if using, and arrange the apple wedges in circles.
  4. Bake at 190°C (375°F) for 15 minutes so the pastry begins to set.
  5. Whisk the eggs with the custard sugar, crème fraîche, and vanilla sugar until smooth.
  6. Pour the custard over the apples and bake 30 to 35 minutes more until just set and burnished at the edges.
  7. Cool until warm, and serve in generous wedges.
Our Kitchen

The Kitchen Behind Miquez Cuisine

Miquez Cuisine is a small home kitchen devoted to the cooking of Normandy, the green corner of France where the orchard meets the sea. Here lunch might begin with mussels from the harbor, continue with chicken simmered in cider, and end with an apple tart still warm from the oven. We write these recipes down the way they are still cooked in farmhouse kitchens, patiently, precisely, and always with a generous hand on the butter.

Our only house rule is an old one: butter from the pasture, crème fraîche ripened the slow way, a spoon of honest lard when the pan asks for it, and nothing else. Vegetable oil never comes through our door, because it never sat on the tables we learned from.

Bon appétit, may it feed you well.

A cook working at a warm stove in a busy farmhouse kitchen