Need help with a chicken part name

[bleudauvergne]

Sot-l’y-laisse - in the Amelie Poulain movie, the grandfather shares this delectable morsel with his grandson. It is that lovely soft and flavorful piece of meat located between the back and the thigh, there is a round indent in the bone and the meat is found there. I need an English equivalent for this term. Can anyone come up with a concise, clear word for this little morsel, not being a scientific term, since this word is required for a food article? Please help me find this word.

Stories on your experiences with it would also help bring out the full meaning...

[percyn]

I have sometimes heard it referred to as the "oyster" of the chicken.

[SuzySushi]

Lucy,

They're called "chicken oysters," and they're my favorite part of the chicken (or turkey!). Just the other day, I read an article online about how some chefs are saving up these morsels for their favorite customers and preparing them with luxury ingredients like shaved truffles. I can't find the link now, but maybe someone else here remembers it -- this particular article can't have been more than a week old. Maybe in Restaurants & Institutions or The New York Times.

[bleudauvergne]

They're doing it in Paris too, with ratte potatoes, not so fancy but sounds delicious, doesn't it?

[SuzySushi]

It sure does! Too bad each chicken has only two. Who can wait to save them up? (They're my "cook's treat" before anyone else gets to them.)

[Lori in PA]

They are my cooks' treat, too -- nobody else in the family knows they exist...

[gus_tatory]

the background on the name is that "sotte l'y laisse" (variant spellings) means "the fool leaves them". that's how highly regarded they are!

[tim]

Lucy,

I hope that a butcher will talk about this muscle. Is it the same as a "love handle"?

This same muscle in a steer provides a wonderful steak called an "oyster" or "spider" steak. Unfortunately, it is impossible to find this steak cut in the US. (Something about ruining the porterhouse below!?)

Tim

[hathor]

Here's my chicken oyster story:

Our son was about 7 and we sometimes went to a neighborhood French restaurant, Chez Jacqueline. The first time we brought Curtis, predictably, he ordered steak. Then, to our horror, he asked for ....ketchup! Eric, the personable, handsome, gregarious, did I mention cute? waiter proceeded to extol the virtues of Bernaise sauce. After that, there was no turning back, Curtis trusted anything that Eric told him. The next time we went, Eric told him where and how to find the chicken oyster. Curtis thought Eric was a god. Chicken oysters go to the fastest in our house, there is absolutely no honor among thieves!

[Kris]

I've also heard it referred to as the oyster.

[mizducky]

Heh. I had stumbled upon that tasty morsel on the chicken on my own, years before I discovered that other people knew about it, let alone cared about it enough to give it a name. Before that, I thought of it as my little secret--and I wasn't about to give it away!

[racheld]

Ditto on the oyster, even where I'm from, where the luscious little morsels are searched out on chickens, ducks and pheasants, and slurped greedily down, including the microfinitesimal pair on a too-slow quail.

I DO wonder about the save-and-cook method, though. No braise or saute could prepare this wonderful tidbit nearly as well as leaving it in its little nest to cook cuddled into the bone, and certainly no knife in the most impressive arsenal could remove one nearly so well or completely as a seeking tongue.

[Abra]

Funny, I've never heard it called an oyster. I call it the scallop, and I thought everybody else did too. Where have I been all my life?

[Dave Hatfield]

Think the oysters have it.

Here's the exact entry from my A-Z of French Food:

" Sol-l'y-laisse: A morsel from just above the inside rump of poultry, considered a great delicacy. Sometimes described in English as "chicken's Oyster", its Franch name translated roughtly, "(only)-a- fool-would-leave-it".

A fool & his oyster are soon parted, but mine never make it to table. Carvers treat.

[Pat Churchill]

The cat and I have one each. No one else in the family knows about them. Cook's perks.

I've always referred to them as "oysters".

[Luckylies]

The cat and I have one each. No one else in the family knows about them. Cook's perks.

I've always referred to them as "oysters".

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sacre bleau!!!!!! zeee cayt??? mon dieu!

-this is how I would speak if I were french, of course.

I actually more of a tail girl, as any part of an animal that essentially fries as it roasts is good in my book.

[Toliver]

I actually more of a tail girl, as any part of an animal that essentially fries as it roasts is good in my book.

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And the tail would be called the "Pope's nose"...used mainly to describe the tail of a turkey but can be applied to all fowl.

[jgm]

The cat and I have one each. No one else in the family knows about them. Cook's perks.

I've always referred to them as "oysters".

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I have four deeply beloved cats, but I would never think of sharing this treat with them. What a generous woman you are!

It's the cook's treat at our house, too. And when I'm at relatives' houses, and the turkey is being deboned, I always try to distract the cook long enough to score the oysters for myself. I am incorrigible, unrepentant, and sneaky. And unapologetic.

[slo_ted]

Oyster. YUM!

[BarbaraY]

I, too, discovered this tasty little morsel long before I knew there was a name for it and Yes! it's mine!

No four legged critters in this house ever get it.

[russ parsons]

i just call them mine. hey, i don't carve in the kitchen for nothing!

[chromedome]

I'll cheerfully join the chorus of "oyster" fans, and second Luckylies on the virtues of the tail. That latter may be hereditary, as my mother always made a point of sneaking that little tidbit as soon as a bird hit the table (before, if she was the one cooking it!).

On one occasion, when I was about six, we were visiting at the house of some friends. I wandered in from the living room, where the kids were eating, in time to see Mom in her usual fork-first powerdive at the roast chicken's nether regions.

"Yep," I said, to general hilarity, "ol' Mom sure likes her tail...."

Edited November 11, 2006 by chromedome (log)

[bleudauvergne]

Many thanks, chicken oyster it is.

[ghostrider]

My dad, who grew up in a small Missouri town in the earliest decades of the 20th century, always called it the "oyster," and always made sure I got one when we had roast chicken.

We had a lot of issues, my dad and I, but he sure knew his food. I got much of my appreciation of fresh ingredients, simply prepared, from him.

Anyway this is to indicate that "oyster" in this context has been in common parlance in the US for close to a century, and probably longer.

(I've never heard it called "chicken oyster"; in context, that would be redundant.)

Edited November 12, 2006 by ghostrider (log)

[jo-mel]

I read somewhere that a French king ate only that oyster, so his chef removed enough from the chickens and threw the rest of the chickens away!

Also delectable, in the same way, are the cheeks of a fish. A nice big fish has two great tender ones. I never let anyone know about them.