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Potato Soufflés
Select six medium-sized, rather flat potatoes. Wash, pare and trim them square, then cut lengthwise in slices one-eighth of an inch thick (no thicker). Wash and dry them on a towel. Drop a few at a time into hot Cottolene (not smoking hot), fry them four minutes, turning them occasionally. Remove with skimmer to a croquette basket, let stand five minutes while the fat is heating. When hot enough to brown an inch cube of bread in forty seconds, place the basket containing potatoes into fat, shake constantly and fry two minutes. Drain on brown paper. Repeat process until all potatoes are used. Sprinkle with salt and dispose around roasted Guinea Fowl.
This is pommes soufflées — potato slices double-fried so that steam inflates them into hollow pillows. It is one of the least forgiving things in classical cookery, and the original text assumes you already know the tricks.
- The hinge: uniform thicknessEvery slice must be the same 1/8 inch, cut on a mandoline if possible. Slices that vary even slightly cook unevenly and will not puff; the low fry sets a skin and the hot fry flashes the interior moisture to steam that lifts it. Expect a fair proportion of failures even when the technique is right.
- CottoleneA shortening of cottonseed oil blended with beef suet, made by the N. K. Fairbank Company and advertised from the late nineteenth century as a lard substitute. Any neutral high-smoke-point fat works — refined peanut, sunflower or ordinary vegetable oil.
- Two fat temperaturesThe first fry, "hot but not smoking," is roughly 275–300F. The second, tested by browning a one-inch bread cube in forty seconds, is about 375–390F. The gap between the two is what makes the puff; a thermometer removes the guesswork the bread cube was standing in for.
- The rest between friesThe recipe gives the five minutes as time for the fat to heat, but the pause also lets the slices cool and the set surface firm, so the second immersion hits them as a sudden shock. Better not to skip it.
- Choice of potatoUse a firm, moderately starchy potato; russets are commonly recommended. New potatoes are too wet. Note that the recipe asks for "rather flat" potatoes, to give broad slices.
- Croquette basket and brown paperA croquette basket is a small wire frying basket; any fine-mesh spider or fryer basket serves. Brown paper means unglazed wrapping paper — drain on a rack over paper towels instead, since sitting flat on paper softens the underside.
- Drying the slicesWashing removes surface starch so the slices do not stick; drying them thoroughly on a towel matters more, as water on the surface makes the low-temperature fat spit and interferes with the skin forming.
- Yield and servingSix medium potatoes give a generous side for four to six. They collapse within a few minutes, so fry the last batch immediately before the bird goes to the table. Guinea fowl can be replaced by a small roast chicken or a pheasant.
Potatoes soufflées are generally traced to mid-nineteenth-century France, where the discovery of the double fry is traditionally credited to a railway chef whose dinner service was delayed and who dropped half-cooked potatoes back into hotter fat — a story repeated in many kitchens and documented in none. By 1900 the dish was a fixture of hotel and restaurant cookery in America, exactly the sort of showpiece a Sunday-dinner book would set beside a roast bird. The explicit call for Cottolene here is worth noting: 52 Sunday Dinners was published by the N. K. Fairbank Company, which manufactured it, and the book functioned as a recipe collection and an advertisement at once.