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Potato Balls
With a French potato scoop cut balls from peeled, raw potatoes and drop them into cold water. Cook for fifteen minutes until soft in enough salted boiling water to cover them. Drain, cover with a piece of cheese cloth, and let them stand a few minutes to dry.
Serve with parsley butter, made as follows:
Cream one tablespoon of butter, add the juice of half a lemon, one teaspoon of chopped parsley, one teaspoon of chopped chives, salt and pepper. Pour over the potato balls and reheat.
A straightforward parisienne-potato dish whose only real difficulty is not overcooking the balls. A few notes on tools, timing and the butter.
- The French potato scoopThis is the parisienne scoop or melon baller, sold today in a range of sizes, commonly around 20-25mm. Cut the balls from large, waxy potatoes; the trimmings are worth keeping for soup or mash rather than discarding.
- Cold water is not optionalRaw cut potato oxidises to a grey-pink within minutes. Dropping the balls straight into cold water as you cut also rinses off surface starch, which keeps them from clouding the cooking water and sticking together.
- Fifteen minutes is longBalls of 20-25mm in salted boiling water are done in about 8-10 minutes, tested with the point of a knife. The full quarter of an hour will take them past soft and they will start rounding off into shapeless lumps in the drainer.
- The cheesecloth dryingThis step matters more than it looks. Surface moisture stops the butter from clinging, so let the drained balls steam dry a few minutes; a clean tea towel does the same job as cheesecloth.
- Parsley butter proportionsOne tablespoon of butter with the juice of half a lemon is a sharp, loose sauce rather than a compound butter. If you want it to coat rather than pool, use two tablespoons of butter, or add the lemon by the teaspoon to taste.
- ReheatingWarm the dressed balls gently in a wide pan, shaking rather than stirring, just until the butter melts and coats. High heat will split the lemon-butter and scorch the chives.
Potatoes cut into small spheres are the classic pommes parisienne of French professional cookery, and the scoop takes its name from the same tradition. The parsley-and-chive butter with lemon is a maitre d'hotel butter in all but name, a standard finishing sauce of the period that turns up on fish, steak and vegetables alike.