Appears in
Oxford Companion to Food

By Alan Davidson

Published 2014

  • About

Coulis a French culinary term which came originally from the Latin colare (to strain) and which has achieved wide currency in English-speaking countries, has been well described by Ayto (1993):

A coulis is a thin purée or sieved sauce made typically of vegetables or fruit (tomato coulis is a common manifestation of it). Nouvelle cuisiniers’ penchant for using fruit coulis, especially made from raspberries, at every opportunity has recently made the term familiar to English-speakers, but in fact it had first crossed the Channel nearly 600 years ago, in the form ‘cullis’. This was a sort of strained broth or gravy made originally probably from chicken, but subsequently from any meat or even fish, and used as a basis for sauces or simply poured over meat dishes.