Andouillette — the coarse, pungent French sausage made from pork (and often veal) chitterlings — is the bouchon's most uncompromising specialty, and this is one of its gentlest preparations. The sausage is sliced or split, laid in a dish, blanketed in a mustard-and-cream sauce, often with a scatter of cheese, and baked until the top browns and the sauce thickens around it. The cream and Dijon mustard soften and frame the andouillette's powerful tripe character, turning a divisive sausage into a warm, bubbling gratin that even the wary will eat.
Andouillette itself is an old charcuterie of several French towns — Troyes in Champagne and Lyon among the most famous — and the artisans' guild AAAAA (Association Amicale des Amateurs d'Andouillette Authentique) was founded to defend the genuine, tripe-made article. Baking andouillette in a mustard-cream sauce is a Lyon and broadly bistro treatment rather than a single chef's creation, a logical extension of the city's love of both the sausage and a good cream-and-mustard sauce (the same pairing that dresses Lyon's poulet au vinaigre and rabbit à la moutarde). It appears across Lyonnais and bistro cookery as the standard way to gratiner an andouillette, with mustard as the near-obligatory partner.
Andouillette is not subtle: it has a deep, barnyard, offaly pungency that the famous AAAAA grading exists to certify, and a coarse, chewy interior of layered chitterlings. The gratin domesticates it. The mustard-cream sauce is tangy, rich and sharp enough to cut the sausage's earthiness, the baked top is golden and a little crisp, and the andouillette inside is hot, dense and meaty beneath it. The mustard's bite and the cream's richness pull in opposite directions and meet in the middle; with crusty bread or boiled potatoes to mop the sauce, it is hearty, warming and honest bouchon food.
Andouillette is already fully cooked when sold, so the gratin is really about heating it through and building the sauce around it. The cream sauce is an emulsion of fat and water stabilised by the mustard, which is both an emulsifier and the dominant flavour; whisked into reduced cream and a little stock or white wine, it clings to the sausage. Crucially the mustard must not be boiled hard — high heat blows off its volatile pungency and can turn it bitter — so it goes in late or the gratin bakes at a moderate temperature. The bake drives Maillard browning on the cheese-and-cream crust, reduces the sauce to a coating consistency, and warms the dense sausage evenly; splitting or slicing the andouillette lets the heat and sauce reach its interior.
Variations
The base is mustard and cream, but cooks vary it freely: a splash of white wine or Chablis in the sauce (an andouillette à la chablisienne tradition), a handful of softened shallots or sautéed mushrooms, or a topping of Gruyère or Comté for a firmer crust. Some bake the andouillette whole and split lengthwise; others slice it into rounds layered with the sauce. A common bistro plating sets the gratin over or beside a pile of potatoes — mashed, sautéed lyonnaise, or as a fuller potato gratin. Troyes and Lyon sausages differ in coarseness, but either works.
On the Palate
Where Gratin d'Andouillette sits in the French flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
7 steps · 20 min active + 30 min waiting
- 110 min
Slice the andouillette into rounds, or split each sausage lengthwise, and lay them in a buttered gratin dish.
- 28 min
Soften shallots in butter, deglaze with a little white wine, and reduce.
- 37 min
Stir in cream, simmer to thicken slightly, then whisk in the Dijon mustard off a hard boil.
Watch outWhisk the mustard in off a hard boil — high heat blows off its pungency and can turn it bitter, so keep it below a rolling simmer.
- 42 min
Season the sauce and pour it over the andouillette.
- 52 min
Scatter grated Gruyère over the top if using.
- 630 min
Bake in a moderate oven until the sauce bubbles and the top is golden and lightly crisp.
Watch outBake at a moderate heat just until the top is golden and lightly crisp — the andouillette is already cooked, so you're only heating through and browning the crust.
- 75 min
Serve hot with potatoes or crusty bread to soak up the sauce.
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