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Perfect Flammekueche

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Perfect Flammekueche

Postby Pepper Pig » Wed Jun 24, 2020 1:41 pm


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Re: Perfect Flammekueche

Postby herbidacious » Wed Jun 24, 2020 2:09 pm

Interesting. A bit non-main stream? A bet my mother doesn't lnow what it is.

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Re: Perfect Flammekueche

Postby herbidacious » Wed Jun 24, 2020 2:12 pm

"Great as a main dish, as the gloss in the tie-in recipe book to the French television programme suggests, but a bit much as a snack with drinks, which is how I’m used to consuming flammekueche."

I have only ever had it in brasseries in France as a main course. (Probably mainly in Pas-De-Calais too.)

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Re: Perfect Flammekueche

Postby Pepper Pig » Wed Jun 24, 2020 2:14 pm

I love it but I’ve never made it.

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Re: Perfect Flammekueche

Postby karadekoolaid » Wed Jun 24, 2020 2:20 pm

Basically, another form of pizza, like the pissaladière in Provence and the coca in Catalunia.

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Re: Perfect Flammekueche

Postby Stokey Sue » Wed Jun 24, 2020 2:34 pm

It's pretty different to eat from pizza, though it has similarities

I've never had a pastry based one, and I'd consider sending it back - I've eaten more in Germany than France but always a bread dough

But I'd not consider making it at home, as I think you do need a bread/pizza oven

For once I think she is completely wrong - too much onion, not enough cream, those lardons are far too big and clunky - they should be delicate so they cook in the 3 or 4 minutes the thing is in the oven; in fact it looks amateurish

Flammekueche in my experience is made with a bread dough stretched so thin and cooked so hot it comes out almost like strudel pastry, often made huge - perhaps 40 or 45 cm across, always round and free form never in a tin. Topped with creme fraiche and then a choice of toppings. Food of the gods

I'd leave a comment but for some reason I can't see that page on my PC, only on my iPad

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Re: Perfect Flammekueche

Postby Uschi » Wed Jun 24, 2020 3:43 pm

I only know it with a yeast dough, similar to pizza, or sometimes a little more like brown bread.

Sue is right, a pizza oven will give the best results, but a normal oven at high heat will work, too.
I've had it with thinly sliced smoked ham, but I prefer it with lardons.

It seems that variations of this were made all over Germany in the days when they still used large communal baking houses in small towns and villages. My mother tells me that in her Central German home they made thin, longish flat bread from leftover brown bread dough and topped them with a little egg and cream combined and sliced onions (not too thickly). These onion-cakes were baked last, large breads came first, then the traybakes and finally the onion-cakes (not sweet, though).

My grandfather manned the Mengelrode baking house until the late '70s. He did not mind the hard work that loading and firing the oven meant, but he did resent the bickering of the women. There was little discussion about how to place the breads, but the traybakes were a different matter. You had to place them according to thickness and moistness (yeast dough, topped with a thin layer of semolina pudding, a good layer of fruit of the season and finally a mix of cinnamon and sweet creme fraiche) some women went to town with these, others made very meagre offings. Knowing these things and then distributing everything accordingly in the oven was an art, but everyone had their own ideas and there was much fighting for the best spaces. Opa (Grandpa) Karl sometimes threw the women out when it got too much so he could load everything in peace.
Some villages are reviving these communal baking houses, but, alas, many have been torn down.

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Re: Perfect Flammekueche

Postby Stokey Sue » Wed Jun 24, 2020 3:51 pm

The Hairy Bikers did an episode of their Bakeation that featured a communal village bake house

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Re: Perfect Flammekueche

Postby Uschi » Wed Jun 24, 2020 6:46 pm

For small communities it does have its uses. It gives people something to look forward too, a place to meet and socialise. It is a pity the Mengelrode bake house is gone now.

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Re: Perfect Flammekueche

Postby KeenCook2 » Wed Jun 24, 2020 6:54 pm

Uschi wrote:
It seems that variations of this were made all over Germany in the days when they still used large communal baking houses in small towns and villages. My mother tells me that in her Central German home they made thin, longish flat bread from leftover brown bread dough and topped them with a little egg and cream combined and sliced onions (not too thickly). These onion-cakes were baked last, large breads came first, then the traybakes and finally the onion-cakes (not sweet, though).

My grandfather manned the Mengelrode baking house until the late '70s. He did not mind the hard work that loading and firing the oven meant, but he did resent the bickering of the women. There was little discussion about how to place the breads, but the traybakes were a different matter. You had to place them according to thickness and moistness (yeast dough, topped with a thin layer of semolina pudding, a good layer of fruit of the season and finally a mix of cinnamon and sweet creme fraiche) some women went to town with these, others made very meagre offings. Knowing these things and then distributing everything accordingly in the oven was an art, but everyone had their own ideas and there was much fighting for the best spaces. Opa (Grandpa) Karl sometimes threw the women out when it got too much so he could load everything in peace.
Some villages are reviving these communal baking houses, but, alas, many have been torn down.


Fascinating, Uschi!

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Re: Perfect Flammekueche

Postby Uschi » Thu Jun 25, 2020 1:09 am

Sorry, I do go on a bit sometimes.

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Re: Perfect Flammekueche

Postby herbidacious » Thu Jun 25, 2020 10:09 am

Not at all, Uschi. Very interesting.

I love the idea of a communal bakehouse. As people will know, in the Middle Ages and much later, most (poorish) urban folk didn't have kitchens but took their food to be cooked at the bakery (right word?) for a small fee.
I suppose now we are the other way round. We buy ready prepared food to cook in our own kitchens.

Thinking about it Flammekueche (I think I have had it in the Netherlands too) is one of the few things I am able to eat as a vegetarian when trying to eat out in France, so I do feel inclined to save it for those occasions. But never say never and all that.
The idea of having it as nibbles with drinks is an appealing one. If only I ever entertained.... or got invited to such things.

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Re: Perfect Flammekueche

Postby Stokey Sue » Thu Jun 25, 2020 10:18 am

My first tarte flambée (same thing) was in the basement of the shopping mall near the French mouth of eurotunnel, some years ago

A colleague and I fortunately ordered different ones, because when hers came it was freckled with tiny bacon lardons and not has she had expected vegetarian, but mine was 3 cheese with some herbs and no meat so we swapped

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Re: Perfect Flammekueche

Postby herbidacious » Thu Jun 25, 2020 10:52 am

French menus are rarely transparent regarding their ingredients in the way that, say, Italian ones are. (Was given 'are you an idiot?' looks when I asked if something, the ingredients of which were listed on the menu, was vegetarian, when I first started going to Italy.) In northern France it's almost as if it's a given that there will be lardons. Basically, unless it's described as 'vegetarian' there is a good chance your dish will have them in.

My uncle in law who lives in south east Brittany assures me that France is very vegan these days. He trotted off a ridiculously high statistic. I simply don't believe him, I'm afraid, or at least not that this is reflected in eating establishments. True, there could have been a vegan revolution since last August, but he said a similar thing to me in April 2019 and nothing had changed in Orne or Manche.

The French do vegan and vegetarian very differently from the UK, too. Then tend to go down the very worthy 1970s brown everything and lots of raw stuff route. Or worse still you just get a green salad or a plate of vegetables. They just don't seem to get it. Or what they get is different from the UK. It feels almost as if they can't believe that vegetarians and vegans really like or appreciate food. But I concede this may be changing.

Anyway, in France still, you need to ask. 'Does it have meat or fish in it?'

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Re: Perfect Flammekueche

Postby Stokey Sue » Thu Jun 25, 2020 11:37 am

I think in continental Europe vegetarian and vegan are often seen more as health diet choices than anything else - I’ve seen German menus with a small vegetarian section labelled Diat (diet) though that was some time ago

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Re: Perfect Flammekueche

Postby karadekoolaid » Fri Jun 26, 2020 3:16 am

Uschi wrote:I only know it with a yeast dough, similar to pizza, or sometimes a little more like brown bread.

Sue is right, a pizza oven will give the best results, but a normal oven at high heat will work, too.
I've had it with thinly sliced smoked ham, but I prefer it with lardons.

It seems that variations of this were made all over Germany in the days when they still used large communal baking houses in small towns and villages. My mother tells me that in her Central German home they made thin, longish flat bread from leftover brown bread dough and topped them with a little egg and cream combined and sliced onions (not too thickly). These onion-cakes were baked last, large breads came first, then the traybakes and finally the onion-cakes (not sweet, though).

My grandfather manned the Mengelrode baking house until the late '70s. He did not mind the hard work that loading and firing the oven meant, but he did resent the bickering of the women. There was little discussion about how to place the breads, but the traybakes were a different matter. You had to place them according to thickness and moistness (yeast dough, topped with a thin layer of semolina pudding, a good layer of fruit of the season and finally a mix of cinnamon and sweet creme fraiche) some women went to town with these, others made very meagre offings. Knowing these things and then distributing everything accordingly in the oven was an art, but everyone had their own ideas and there was much fighting for the best spaces. Opa (Grandpa) Karl sometimes threw the women out when it got too much so he could load everything in peace.
Some villages are reviving these communal baking houses, but, alas, many have been torn down.


that is a delightful tale, Uschi! Please "go on" some more!!

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Re: Perfect Flammekueche

Postby karadekoolaid » Fri Jun 26, 2020 3:38 am

Anyway, in France still, you need to ask. 'Does it have meat or fish in it?'

Sounds like the UK in the 1970s.
"Has it got meat in it?"
" No - it´s vegetarian!"
" So what´s this, ham??"
" Yeah, but ham´s not meat, is it?"
:lol: :lol:

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Re: Perfect Flammekueche

Postby aero280 » Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:20 am

My uncle - well everyone was loosely related in a Cornish village! - ran the bakery. I often had to take a dish down mid-morning for it to be put in the big “hole in the wall” so that it was cooked by lunchtime. I was very young and I was never sent down to collect it when it was hot!

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Re: Perfect Flammekueche

Postby Pampy » Fri Jun 26, 2020 12:25 pm

Me : I'm vegetarian (I'm not - just eat poultry and fish, but it's far easier just to go for the veggie option).
Waiter : Do you want sausages then?
:roll: :roll:

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Re: Perfect Flammekueche

Postby karadekoolaid » Fri Jun 26, 2020 2:35 pm

Waiter : Do you want sausages then?


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

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