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Potatoes a la Brabanconne
Boil some potatoes, rub them through a sieve, add pepper, salt, and a tablespoonful of cream to a pound of potatoes, rub through a tammy again. Chop a shallot, a spring or two of parsley and mix them in, sprinkling in at the same time a dust of nutmeg and a dessertspoonful of grated cheese. Place the puree in a dish to be baked, and before setting it in the oven sprinkle on the top some bread-crumbs, and cheese grated and mixed and one or two pats of salt butter. Bake till it is a golden brown.
A plain potato puree gratin that depends entirely on texture: the potatoes are passed twice, once through a sieve and once through cloth, before anything else happens. A few of the terms and quantities need translating.
- The double sieving is the pointRubbing through a sieve and then a tammy (a fine worsted or muslin straining cloth, stretched and worked with a wooden spoon) gives a puree with no lumps and no strings. A ricer or food mill twice over does the same job. A food processor does not — it ruptures the starch cells and turns the puree to glue.
- Choose a floury potatoRussets, King Edwards or a similar mealy variety pass through a sieve cleanly. Waxy potatoes resist the sieve and give a gummy result under this treatment.
- DessertspoonfulA dessertspoon is two teaspoons, so roughly 2 tsp of grated cheese per pound of potato in the puree itself, with more mixed into the crumb topping. The seasoning is deliberately restrained.
- A tablespoon of cream per pound is very littleBy modern standards this is a stiff puree, closer to a piped duchesse mixture than to creamed potato — which is why it holds its shape in the dish and browns rather than bubbling. If you want it softer, add cream by the spoonful, but it will spread and the crust will be thinner.
- Raw shallotChopped shallot mixed in raw will still have bite after a short bake. Chop it very fine, or sweat it in a little butter first, unless a sharp allium note is wanted.
- The cheeseThe cheese — The book gives no variety. A firm grating cheese — Gruyère, Emmental, or a well-aged Gouda — suits it; anything that melts to oil will slick the top instead of browning it.
- Oven and timingNone is given. A hot oven, 400°F, for 20 to 30 minutes browns the crumbs without drying the puree. Everything in the dish is already cooked, so you are only setting and colouring the top; the broiler for the last minute or two will finish it if the crust is pale.
- YieldA pound of potatoes as written serves two or three as a side dish. Scale the cream, cheese and shallot proportionally.
À la brabançonne means "in the manner of Brabant," the duchy at the historical heart of the Low Countries whose name survives in the Belgian provinces of Flemish and Walloon Brabant and in La Brabançonne, the national anthem. In French kitchen usage the label was attached loosely to Belgian-tasting garnishes and preparations — Brussels sprouts and potatoes above all — rather than to any single fixed formula. There was a small wartime genre of this kind: collections of Belgian recipes published in Britain and America during the First World War, when Belgium was under German occupation and the plight of Belgian refugees was a constant public subject. Such volumes are often said to have supported relief funds through their sales, and their contents lean heavily on the frugal, potato-and-butter cooking that readers associated with the country. A dish built from boiled potatoes, a spoonful of cream, a shallot and a dust of grated cheese fits that picture exactly.