Escalope

Paillard or scallop

Paillard is an older French culinary term referring to a quick-cooking, thinly sliced or pounded piece of meat. In France, it has been largely replaced by the word escalope.

Origin

The term escalope originated in France. It first appeared in cookery terminology late in the 17th century as a dialectal expression in the northeast of rural France, originally meaning a shelled nut or mollusk: veau à l'escalope (veal cooked in the style of an escalope). In those days, an escalope was undoubtedly always veal.

Other uses

The term "escalope" is also applied to meat-free products such as Quorn (mycoprotein) escalopes, which have a cheese and broccoli sauce encased in bread crumbs. In Australia the term escalope is also applied to potatoes that have been thinly sliced. Potatoes that are thinly sliced, battered, then fried are often called "scallops".