Ika is the Japanese for calamari, squid, cuttlefish and that kind of seafood. Today, it’s in a classic French dish.
The sauce has a long story that probably starts in Provence where, in 19th Century, Pierre Fraise, a chef grew up. He went to work in the US. He come back in Paris in 1858 to open his restaurant, the legend says. And he serve this sauce with lobster and named it “à l’américaine ” (American style). That was a day when he had no inspiration for dish names nor for recipes. So he made his mother’s tomato sauce, slightly upgraded. With a lobster. That was copied, became a French classic sauce for lobster, and cheaper seafood, particularli calamari. And calamari being abundant in Bretagne (Brittany), the “calamars à l’américaine ” became a local specialty. What relation with America ? None, At some point, in 20th Century, some restaurants started to write “à l’armoricaine” on the menus, as Armor is a name for local seaside area. And now, you can hear some swear that was an ancestral recipe of Brittany dating back to dinosaurs.
So we got : “calamars à l’armoricaine”. That’s how you create a regional dish, you copy anything you like and you rename !
You followed ? Oh that doesn’t matter. That’s a delicious seafood dish with tomato and cognac sauce. It’s very popular in France.
It’s longly simmered, so the flesh becomes extremely tender.
Served with a star of rice.
GOURMANDE in OSAKA 