The Escoffier Series, Ch 13, Vegetables continues with potatoes
Escoffier lists only 59 procedures for potatoes, but I’ll wager we can think of more than that.
Many stem from a basic recipe, a mashed potato or a croquette or even a baked potato. The variety comes from different cooking procedures or shapes, and a variety of garnishes.
There’s plenty of innovation and inspiration from this episode to get your potato cookery creativity rolling.
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It seems like a long time coming. We’re finally at the potatoes portion of the chapter.
Escoffier lists 59 different procedures for potatoes. That covers many. In true Escoffier fashion, add one element to any procedure and create a whole new procedure. And that makes the variations increase by a magnitude, maybe even infinite if you consider the variety we now have of potato choices.
Escoffier will rely on a few cooking procedures to get his many variations of potatoes. Cooked in butter or clarified fat on the stovetop is one method of cooking small cuts or small potato pieces. Pomme de Terre Chateau or Fondant are two examples.
Baking the potato is another. It can be the case that baking is the final step in a series of cooking steps. Pommes de Terre Duchesse is one example.
Deep frying is, of course, a much-appreciated cooking method for potatoes. You may recall back in the chicken chapter we mentioned Chicken Maryland. It’s fried chicken. It will then be no surprise to you to learn there is an Escoffier procedure for Pommes de Terre Chip–Potato chips.
The last major process for various potato dishes is puree. He’ll use the puree for mashed potatoes and then for a variety of procedures including croquettes.
Some procedures are outliers. Pommes Anna is one. They are thin, uniform slices of potatoes layered in circles in a thick-bottomed pan, coated well with butter, salted, and finally baked. The ideal version is crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.
When I was at the Ritz-Carleton in Naples, every vegetable got more attention than you would give at home. We did something called a tourner cut, which means to cut the vegetable, carrot or parsnip or potato or beet, into a seven-sided oval shape that is tapered on both ends and each of the seven sides is uniform. Zucchini and yellow squash were trimmed only on the seed side. In all cases the waste, trimmed pieces that were not servable, was immense. At best, one Idaho potato yielded 4 tourner potatoes. Those cuts of veg were used in both fine dining outlets and the banquet outlets. In some cases, the executive chef and any free cooks stood around a table tournering veggies over garbage cans.
Tournered veg makes for attractive and uniform pieces. Cooking time is perhaps the best reason to keep vegetables uniform. Knife skills are important here. A carrot cut into a cube 1/8″ square will not cook the same as a dice cut 1/4″ or 1/2″.
Tourner potatoes is not a goal for home cooks.
Potatoes for Anna potatoes should be cut into round cylinders. There’s an aesthetic appeal, round disks in a round shape. To get that we used the piece of drain pipe that comes from the drain and leads to the P-trap. A good shape, cheat from the do-it-yourself store, and easy to clean.
To get them sliced uniformly thin, which should be a bit less than an 1/8 of an inch, a mandoline is useful. I’ve not tried it with a box cutter. It would be uniform, for sure, but I think most box cutters’ slices are too thick. On the subject of uniform shapes, a melon baller tool is useful for making round shapes of potatoes. Again, uniformity of cooking and aesthetics is the reason to do it and it makes a lot of waste.
Escoffier offers Pommes de terre Noisette, which is potatoes cut into ball shapes with that melon baller tool, pan-fried till golden brown and crispy. A holiday dinner might be a reason to make these potatoes. One very important cooking note is the potatoes must be one layer deep. The same practice is needed for sautéed diced potatoes.
Potatoes have a lot of water. One layer ensures even browning and cooking. It also requires the cook to frequently attend to the pan, tossing or shaking the pan to make sure all sides are browned. Adding more than one layer, basically over-crowding the pan, will make steam. And, in almost every case, the steam rising from the surface of the pan will cook the potatoes above. That cooked potato, even ever so slightly cooked, will stick to the pan when it makes contact. Not only will you not get the pretty golden brown you want, the shape will be destroyed since the potato will stick and pull apart. It is a pretty big mess and can’t be fixed with more heat and fat. The best you can hope for is to stop what has already been done. So, a big pan for Pommes de Terres Noisette or Southern Hash Browns.
Escoffier’s preferred potato for most dishes is a Dutch potato. If you go to the store expect blank stares from the produce staff. What he means is an older potato with a lot of starch. We don’t have a lot of control over the age of the potato we buy. We do have control over which is the preferred potato with the most starch. Idaho or Russet is the ideal potato for most of Escoffier’s dishes. Yukon Golds are often mentioned in contemporary recipes for mashed potatoes and they do taste good. They are slightly less starchy than Russets. The starch is the key to Anna potatoes sticking together in the pan and the mashers holding a lot of butter and cream.
Of published chef/authors, Joel Rubichon made his name, in part, for a potato puree that is sublime. You didn’t know potatoes could be that good. Such a procedure is more time-consuming than most people are willing to give. Fair enough. I’ll mention the details quickly, though. 2 pounds of Russets, washed, left whole, and not peeled. Cook in well-salted water until they are just done. Remove and peel the skins off keeping in mind those potatoes are hot. Puree the potatoes through a very fine-meshed screen into a pan and dry the puree on a low burner on the stovetop. Cut 2 sticks of butter into 8 pieces each and scald the milk, 3/4 of a cup, and set aside.
Dry the potatoes until the steam mostly stops rising from the pan and you see slight streaks of potato sticking. Start adding the chunks of butter, one or two at a time, stirring carefully so you don’t splash hot potato on you. Add the next chunk after the first is mostly incorporated. After all the butter is in, drizzle half of the milk, stirring carefully, and check the consistency. Rubichon’s potato puree barely holds a shape. Season well and serve.
The home version will almost require the fine plate of a food mill. Most ricer tools are more coarse than the finest plate of a food mill. This will make a very satisfactory second. The puree made from passing the potatoes through a fine screen is inexplicably smooth.
Mashed potatoes are often made with peeled potatoes cut into chunks. It’s faster, which can be a benefit. The starch exposed by peeling and cutting goes down the drain and the finished product is inferior for it. Cooking the potatoes in the skin preserves nearly all the possible starch which is vital to hold the butter and cream. And, as we’ll see, vital for most of Escoffier’s dishes where mashers are the first step.
For you playing at home, you are correct that this is the way for nearly all of Escoffier’s procedures. Croquette de Pommes de Terre is the other exception to the guide. The first exception is his own Mashed potatoes. Rubichon is no slouch and his change makes sense.
Cooking potatoes whole, in their skins, isn’t really a rule but a good practice. Croquettes, and Escoffier’s mashers, start with peeled, cut potatoes cooked in boiling salted water until just done, remaining a bit firm. The distinction here is that boiling water cooks, that is, gelatinizes, the starch as soon as it hits the water which mostly seals the potato from releasing more starch. In both cases the minimization of starch loss is important.
Just for reference, Escoffier uses 7 ounces of butter for every 2.25 pounds of potato and 9 ounces of milk.
Croquettes are fried somethings. It is not always potato-based. Carrots or parsnips can be croquettes. Croquette is back in Hors D’oeuvre and is made of half of the total mixture a puree of the principal ingredient, a quarter from flap mushrooms or regular mushrooms, one-sixth ham, and one-twelfth truffle.
Our potato croquettes are a little less elaborate. For every kilo of dried, pureed potato add 3.5 ounces of butter, salt, pepper, and nutmeg and mix well on the stovetop. Remove from the heat and add 4 egg yolks and one whole egg. In most cases, Escoffier advises a 2-ounce portion shaped as a cork or an apricot, is the right size. The primary goal is to have the inside hot and the outside well-browned.
That’s the croquette mixture. As it stands, it can be shaped, breaded in the three-step breading procedure, and deep fried. They can also be frozen after breading.
Into that mixture any number of ingredients can be added. The chief caution is to avoid adding so many additional ingredients that the integrity of the mixture is compromised. Instead of nice crispy shapes with stuff, the mixture will not hold together and fall apart in the frying causing no shortage of frustration and colorful metaphors.
Pommes de Terre Berny, B E R N Y, is the croquette mixture with 4 ounces of chopped truffle added. Instead of breadcrumbs, Escoffier writes to coat the apricot-sized pieces in almond meal. Truffles aren’t something you find in your local grocery store. We’ve discussed mushroom Duxelles before and that would be perfect here. Briefly, fine chop or food process some mushrooms. Saute them in whole butter with fine minced shallots and butter on low heat. Cook until the water evaporates and the mushrooms are a thick paste. Add the cooled Duxelles to the croquette mixture and that’s a good substitute. And avoid truffle oil. There may be a wee thumbnail-sized piece of truffle peel in the bottle but the scent is not natural. It’s made in a factory and that’s about all you may want to know about that.
Cheddar cheese, or mostly any cheese you have in the cheese drawer, will do. Chives are a good flavor and a pretty addition.
If you are adding protein, ham or turkey cold cuts for example, dice and saute them first to remove some excess water. Water will work against the croquette mixture.
I mentioned that some of Escoffier’s potato procedures start with one whole recipe just to make a whole other one. Croquette de Pommes de Terre Dauphine is one such procedure.
Start with the croquette mixture and add 11 ounces of still pate au choux. Pate au choux is also called choux paste and is the dough that makes cream puffs and Long Johns. It has a variety of other uses, too, including a French gnocchi. It puffs up wonderfully when cooked and will do so here.
In some cases, as we’ve seen before, use one item, croquettes, form it a different way and it’s a new procedure. Pommes de Terre Dauphine is one such thing. Instead of making a croquette, pipe them into Brioche a tete molds or, using a star tip, pipe spirals on a parchment-lined sheet pan. Brush either with beaten egg and cook until golden brown and serve hot.
I teased recently that you may be cooking Classical French food and not know it. Chicken Maryland is fried chicken. Sauce Mayonnaise and Potato Chips are also in the book. So is Straw Potatoes or what used to be called shoestring potatoes. And, so is the stuffed, double-baked potato.
One detail about frying potatoes for chips or shoestrings. All shapes or sizes for deep-fried potatoes should be rinsed or soaked at least 10 minutes before frying. Then, dried well so the water doesn’t splatter.
350° is a pretty common frying temperature. For chips, especially thin ones, 300 or maybe even 275 is better. The goal is to draw out as much water as possible to make the potato crisp without burning. Burn happens before you see it. A slightly dark brown can taste burnt which means low and slow is the name of the game for chips. Shoestrings can work at 350 and, of course, French fries do, too. One other step for French Fries is worth doing. They should be fried at a low temp for a few minutes. 275 for 5 minutes, or so. That’s called blanching even though it isn’t really. If you read a recipe that says blanch your French fries first, that’s what they mean. If the fryer has no other use, leave the fries in the fryer basket after blanching while you wait for the temperature to reach 350 and/or for the rest of the meal to be close to ready. Then, fry your fries till GBD.
In the potato chip world, the Pommes de Terre Soufflées is the pinnacle of frying skill. Or, sometimes just luck.
The goal is to fry a thin piece of potato chip so it puffs up like a pillow. That’s procedure 4197. The potato is cut into a rectangle, then sliced into slices “exactly 3 mm absolutely even thickness.” Wash and dry the slices. Fried in hot fat and then turning the fat hotter to get it back to heat as rapidly as possible is the technique. Good luck. I’ve had success with this when I didn’t intend it and nearly no success when I did intend it. Done well and correctly the crunch is a delight and the airy texture is giddy fun. I’m told these can be ordered in bistros around France. I’ve never been so I don’t know.
The other procedure that sounds the same is Soufflé de Pommes de Terre. A potato soufflé. Make 1 pound 2 ounces of “fairly stiff mashed potatoes finished with a little cream” Add 3 egg yolks and fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Place in a prepared soufflé dish or dishes and bake till done.
He doesn’t offer any sauce suggestions. It seems any of the cream sauces or creamed veloute sauces would be good here. It also seems a demi glaze would be ideal. All that rich beefy goodness with puffy mashed potatoes is almost too grand to think about.
Escoffier is, perhaps unintentionally, vague more than infrequently. Fairly stiff mashed potatoes. Well, what the heck is that? Since he does say to add cream, I would omit the milk from the regular mashers recipe. Add cream enough to make the mashers somewhat pliable. What is unknown to the cook who has never made a soufflé is the egg yolks will seem to make the mixture runny. All that is fixed in the baking. What can’t be fixed is a soufflé base that is from the start too thin. The risk, and for a soufflé it’s a huge risk, is it will not keep its shape when it comes out of the oven. You could add flavor like truffles or Duxelles here. I would avoid all cheeses since the fat will mess with the ratios. The cheese is best served in the sauce or sprinkled inside after the soufflé is broken open.
A quick recap. Mashed potatoes can be mashers, of course, or have stuff added to them to make new potato dishes. Add eggs and you get croquettes which are shaped, three-step breaded, and fried. Use that same croquette mixture, pipe it on a sheet pan in pretty, uniform shapes and it’s another procedure. Add different garnishes and it’s a new procedure.
Various shapes, oval or round, and different sizes of shapes, make different procedures. In most cases, those shapes are cooked on the stovetop with clarified fat.
Those Anna potatoes are a new procedure if you add grated cheese. Escoffier doesn’t indicate which cheese. Gruyere seems a good choice. The grated cheese is between each layer of potatoes and cooked the same way. That dish is Pommes de Terre Voisin.
Two more procedures I want to address. The first is the stuffed baked potato. In some cases, he’ll use the scooped potato mixture, finished with added garnish and baked in a small pan, often the tin for a Brioche a tete.
Pommes de Tere Ménagère is a stuffed baked potato. Bake the potatoes and when done, cut the top off, maybe half an inch from the top. To every 2.25 pounds of scooped, baked potato, add 5 ounces of diced ham cooked in butter with 3.5 ounces of small diced onions also cooked in butter. Add this to the potato and add 5 ounces of boiling milk to the mixture. Stir well, season, and refill the empty potato shells. Smooth the surface, cover with dry white breadcrumbs and melted butter. Bake to reheat the potato and brown the tops under a broiler.
Of course, you can add anything you want to your filling and each new ingredient is a new procedure.
The last procedure is similar to the stuffed baked, except it isn’t baked. The procedure is Pommes de Terre Macair. We made this at the Governors’ Club with an adjustment to the procedure.
Escoffier’s process is to bake the potatoes. Cut them in half, and scoop out the insides. Season with salt and pepper and mash with a fork adding 7 ounces of butter to every 2.25 pounds of potato. Spread this filling, or some part of it, into the bottom of a hot pan with very hot clarified butter. When browned, flip and brown the other side and serve.
Our alterations were these. Food mill the filling so it’s smooth. Press the potato mixture into a half-sheet pan, pressing it flat and smooth. We chilled it then used a round cutter to cut out shapes. This may sound complex. The shape we used was like a quarter moon. The first round cut was to get into the potato. Cut and lift out the first round and the quarter moons are easy to cut.
This might be more than is necessary at home. A kilo of Macair potatoes is a lot. Making a small portion to cook all at once is fine.
There are a few challenges. The first is the pan is not hot enough. When that happens, the potato mixture will stick. That is, it will not release and will not stay attached to the rest of the potato. The other big challenge is turning the potato over. I do not recommend filling a 10-inch pan to the edges with Macair potato and then trying to turn it over. That’s going to be very frustrating. Instead, try this. Fill a round cutter with the mixture and place that in the very hot pan. Lift the ring off and fill it again. Don’t crowd the pan. Leave room to make sure you can get a tool in the pan to flip the potato. Also, have plenty of clarified butter at the ready to ensure you can keep the pan lubricated.
There is no version of Macair with chives or truffles. It might work.
The variety of potato dishes is immense. Every alteration is a new procedure, but not really. Use Swiss Cheese instead of Cheddar Cheese and that’s a new procedure. It seems silly, but that’s how he do.
What remains in vegetables are rice, which seems like it should not be a vegetable, tomatoes, salsify, Jerusalem artichokes, and truffles. I think that can be managed in one episode then there’s the farniacious products. 4 chapters remain. The next chapter, Sweets, Puddings, and Desserts is huge. I’ll cover just the basics. What’s pretty clear is the principles are the important part and from those the variations stem.
