Signature dish
Gratin of crayfish tails
Marguerite Bise · 1898–1965 · Talloires, lac d’Annecy
Shelled crayfish tails bound in a cream sauce built on crayfish butter and browned in the dish, kept on the Auberge du Père Bise menu by later chefs.
Why it works
The pigments and aroma compounds of the crayfish shells are fat-soluble, so pounding them into butter and reducing them with cream extracts what water alone leaves in the shell, and the resulting fat-rich sauce browns under the grill instead of splitting.