Tag Archives: citron

Le Fruit de votre Imagination (The Fruit of your Imagination)

Posted on 28. Nov, 2011 by in Cooking, Music, Vocabulary

Who doesn’t enjoy une salade de fruits?

There’s no limit on the sort of fruits you can throw into the mix: All fruits are most cordially welcome: Pas de “fruit défendu“, pour ainsi dire ! (No “forbidden fruit”, so to speak!) In fact, your imagination is the only limit, so that your salade de fruit can then turn, literally, as the expression goes, into  ”le pur fruit de votre imagination“ (“the pure fruit of your imagination.”)


              Dessin animé des “Fruttis“ (Fruttis cartoon)

In a previous post, we invited you to become a connaisseur (or “coinoisseur”) of les légumes (vegetables), to earn the title of “grosse légume“ en quelque sorte (a “big shot” of sorts) on the subject matter: “Quelle légume détestez/préférez-vous le plus? (What vegetable do you hate/like the most?)

Today, we follow up with the different types of the main fruits, discovering each one of their names en français, according to the categories they fall into.

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Commençons par les “fruits légumes“ (Let’s start with the fruit vegetables) which we have already seen in the last post. They include la tomateles olivesle poivron: vert, rouge, et jaune (peppers: Green, red, yellow), as well asaubergine (eggplant), la courge (squash), la citrouille (pumpkin), and the courgette (zucchini.)


                  Quel gâchis de sauce tomate ! (What waste of tomato sauce!)

Depending on their core content, fruits can either be fruits à pépins” (“pome fruits”) or fruits à noyau.  As the name already suggests, the most famous of those “pome fruits” is la pomme (apple.) Similarly, la poire (pear) belongs to the same category, together with the nèfles du japon (In English, “loquat”, or “japanese plums”) and le coing (quince), which -à propos (by the way)- makes a delicious  confiture (jam)(Quince jam)!

Quel délice ! 
A broader category of fruits is definitely the one of les fruits tropicaux. Most notables of which are les bananes (bananas), with its variant la banane plantain (plantain), l’ananas(pinapple… Did someone say: “Je suis un ananas”?), le fruit de la passion (passion fruit), le kiwiles figues (figs, obviously), la mangue (mango), la goyave (guava), and la papaye (papaya.)

Tropica Fruit Grenade
  Attention! Ce fruit a un “goût explosif”  (Warning! The taste of this fruit is “pure blast”)

The other categories that we ought not passer sous silence (fail to mention) are the ”melons” and the ”agrumes”(“citrus fruits.”)

You’d be wrong to assume that there’s only one type of melon: Of course, there’s la pastèque (watermelon), but there is also the melon d’Ogen (Ogen melon), le melon de miel (honeydew melon), le melon brodé (muskmelon), and there is also, in the same category, le cantaloup (cantaloupe.) 

As for the “agrumes“, they form the group to which belong l’orange (orange) and its little sister, la mandarine(mandarin), le citron (lemon) and its green sosie (lookalike), la lime (lime.)

Finally, a word of caution must be said about not two, not three, but *four* agrumes fruits, the names of which happen to be des “faux-amis” (“false friends”) between English and French.

The French “citron“ corresponds to the English “lemon“; however, the English “citron” is called in French “le cédrat.”
Similarly, the French ”pomelo” is called in English “grapefruit”; however, the English “pomelo” corresponds the French“pamplemousse” !

En résumé (In short):
citron [fr.] = lemon [eng.]
pomelo [fr.] = grapefruit [eng.]
pamplemousse [fr.] = pomelo [eng.]

Filet mignon—Bon appétit!

Posted on 29. Oct, 2011 by in Cooking, Film, People, Vocabulary

Filets mignons de veau à la normande If you are among the countless fans of fine French cuisine whose péché mignon (little weakness) happens to be a filet mignon, then don’t look anywhere else, because this delicious recette (recipe) freshly hailing from the French coasts of la Normandie (Normandy) is just for you!

• Pour 4 personnes (for 4 people):

  • 800 g of filet mignon of veau (veal) cut in 4 parts
  • 7 pommes (apples) of the ”Golden type
  • oignon (onion)
  • Around 500 g of champignons (mushrooms)
  • Le jus (the juice) of a half citron (lemon)
  • 3 cuillères à soupe (tablespoon) of crème fraîche (fresh cream)
  • 25 cl of cidre (cider)
  • 1 tablespoon of farine (flour)
  • 1 tablespoon of huile (oil)
  • Some margarine
  • Sel (salt) 
  • Poivre (pepper)
  • Temps de préparation (preparation time) : 20 minutes seulement (only)!
  • Temps de cuisson (cooking time) : 45 minutes
  1. Take a faitout (stewpot)immerse the veal mignons into l’huile and la margarine

    faitout (stewpot)

  2. Put on the salt and the pepper, and add the chopped oignon as well as la farine
  3. Stir the whole thing and cook for 5 minutes à feu doux (under gentle fire.)
  4. Add the cidre
  5. Put on the pealed cut apples between the mignons.
  6. Cook for 25 minutes.
  7. In the meantime, wash the champignons and slice them thinly
  8. Remove the mignons and the apples.Put the stewpot under mild fire, add the crème fraîche until you get a sauce nappante (coating sauce), which should take some ten minutes
  9. Add the jus de citron.
  10. Put the champignons with a bit of margarine inside a covered poêle (frying pan) in order to extract their juice. Once that’s done, cook them uncovered to glaze them. 
  11. Once you got your sauce nappante, put the mignons de veau and the apples back into the stewpotPut them again under gentle fire, and serve together with the champignons
  12. And pour finir (to finish)… Serve with some cidre in order to sharpen the goût (taste) of this delicious dish!

A Delicious “Filet mignon” from the French Coasts of Normandy!

Posted on 20. Aug, 2011 by in Cooking, Geography, Vocabulary

Filets mignons de veau à la normande If you are among the countless fans of fine French cuisine whose péché mignon (little weakness) happens to be a filet mignon, then don’t look anywhere else, because this delicious recette (recipe) hailing from the French coasts of la Normandie (Normandy) is just for you!

Pour 4 personnes (for 4 people):

  • 800 g of filet mignon of veau (veal) cut in 4 parts
  • 7 pommes (apples) of theGolden” type
  • 1 oignon (onion)
  • Around 500 g of champignons (mushrooms)
  • Le jus (the juice) of a half citron (lemon)
  • 3 cuillères à soupe (tablespoon) of crème fraîche (fresh cream)
  • 25 cl of cidre (cider)
  • 1 tablespoon of farine (flour)
  • 1 tablespoon of huile (oil)
  • Some margarine
  • Sel (salt) 
  • Poivre (pepper)
  • Temps de préparation (preparation time)20 minutes seulement (only)!
  • Temps de cuisson (cooking time)45 minutes
  1. Take a faitout (stewpot), immerse the veal mignons into l’huile and la margarine. 

    Faitout (stewpot)

  2. Put on the salt and the pepper, and add the chopped oignon as well as la farine. 
  3. Stir the whole thing and cook for 5 minutes à feu doux (under gentle fire.)
  4. Add the cidre. 
  5. Put on the pealed cut apples between the mignons.
  6. Cook for 25 minutes.
  7. In the meantime, wash the champignons and slice them thinly
  8. Remove the mignons and the apples. Put the stewpot under mild fire, add the crème fraîche until you get a sauce nappante (coating sauce), which should take some ten minutes
  9. Add the jus de citron.
  10. Put the champignons with a bit of margarine inside a covered poêle (frying pan) in order to extract their juice. Once that’s done, cook them uncovered to glaze them. 
  11. Once you got your sauce nappante, put the mignons de veau and the apples back into the stewpot. Put them again under gentle fire, and serve together with the champignons. 
  12. And pour finir (to finish)… Serve with some cidre in order to sharpen the goût (taste) of this delicious dish!