Cassolette

A cassolette (from the diminutive form of the French word cassole, a small container) is a small porcelain, glass, or metal container used for the cooking and serving of individual dishes. The word also refers to dishes served in such a container:

• Cassolettes ambassadrice: A ragoût of chicken livers with a duchesse potato border.
• Cassolettes bouquetière: creamed vegetables topped with asparagus tips and cauliflower florets.
• Cassolettes marquise: Crayfish tails à la Nantua to which diced truffles and mushrooms have been added with a border of puff pastry.
• Cassolettes Régence: a salpicon of chicken breast and truffles in a velouté sauce, topped with asparagus tips with a border of duchesse potatoes.

It may also refer to a box or vase with a perforated cover to emit perfumes and enhance the natural scent of a woman.^[1][2] Linked with this meaning, Ian Kerner in She Comes First - the thinking man's guide to pleasuring a woman states that cassolette refers colloquially to that natural woman's scent itself, including the strong scent of the vulva, and notes that Napoleon was a particular aficionado of that of Josephine.^[3]

See also

• List of cooking vessels
• Cassoulet
• Casserole

References

• Larousse Gastronomique (1961), Crown Publishers (translated from the French, Librairie Larousse, Paris (1938))
• Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, 9 édition.
• Elizabeth David, French Country Cooking, decorated by John Minton, published by John Lehmann (1951)