Home › Sauces, Salads, Pickles and Condiments › Timbale of Potatoes
Timbale of Potatoes
Cook, drain, mash, and pass through a fine sieve two quarts of Irish potatoes; put this in a saucepan, with six ounces of butter, two whole eggs, the yolks of six eggs, salt, pepper, nutmeg and a little sugar; have a plain two-quart timbale mould, well buttered and sprinkled with fresh bread-crumbs; put the preparation in it, with a little more bread-crumbs, and bits of butter on the top; bake for half an hour in a moderately hot oven; before serving, pass the blade of a knife between the potatoes and the mould, turn over
A rich baked potato mould, closer to a firm potato soufflé than to mashed potatoes. Everything depends on the mould being coated well enough to release cleanly.
- Irish potatoesNineteenth-century American usage for ordinary white potatoes, distinguishing them from sweet potatoes. The recipe does not say whether the two quarts are measured raw or after sieving; taken as sieved potato it would need something in the region of 4 lb of raw potatoes. A starchy russet gives the driest, lightest result.
- Pass through a fine sieveA ricer or food mill does this in seconds and is the point of the step: it breaks the potato without working the starch. Avoid a food processor, which turns cooked potato gluey.
- The timbale mouldA plain, straight-sided two-quart mould, cylindrical and untrimmed by pattern; a charlotte mould, deep souffle dish or plain cake tin of the same capacity all work. The recipe specifies a plain mould rather than a decorative one.
- Buttering and crumbingThis is the hinge. Butter the mould heavily right to the rim, then turn crumbs around inside until every surface is coated and tip out the excess. A bare patch is where the timbale will tear when you invert it.
- Moderately hot oven375 to 400F. It should be set through and browned at the edges after 30 minutes; a skewer into the centre comes out clean and the whole mass feels firm when the tin is nudged.
- Eight eggs in totalTwo whole eggs plus six yolks, with 6 oz butter, makes a very rich mixture that sets like a custard around the starch. Beat the eggs into the potato while it is warm but not hot, or the yolks will scramble in streaks.
- SeasoningThe "little sugar" is a pinch, meant to lift the potato rather than sweeten it, and the nutmeg should be freshly grated and restrained. Salt generously; sieved potato absorbs a surprising amount.
- Turning out and servingRest the mould a few minutes before running the knife round, then invert onto a warmed dish so the crumb crust stays crisp. It will serve roughly eight as a side dish with roast meat or poultry, and is best sent to the table hot.
The timbale takes its name from the French timbale, a drum-shaped cup, and by extension the straight-sided mould and anything baked in it; the form was a staple of the professional French kitchen and reached American household books in part through the hotel and restaurant cooks who wrote some of them. Its appeal was architectural: a dish that arrived at the table as a shaped, browned column, unmoulded in front of the guests, made a plain vegetable into a course. The heavy proportion of yolks to potato belongs to the same tradition as the potato duchesse and pommes dauphine, all of which use egg to let a starchy pur emovremoved