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Chambery Potatoes
Wash, pare, and thinly slice potatoes, using vegetable slicer. Let stand one-half hour in cold water, then drain, and dry between towels. Arrange in layers in a well buttered iron frying-pan, having pan three-fourths full, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper, and brushing over with melted butter. Cook in a moderate oven until soft and well browned.
A layered potato cake baked in a skillet, closer to pommes Anna than to a gratin — there is no cream, only butter and seasoning. Two things decide whether it works: how thin the slices are and how dry they are.
- Oven temperatureA "moderate oven" in Farmer's day is usually reckoned at roughly 350-375F. Allow something like an hour, judging by eye; the potatoes must be tender all the way through before the top and bottom crusts colour properly.
- The vegetable slicerThis means a hand slicer or mandoline, cutting about 1/16 inch. A food processor slicing disc works. Slices cut by knife tend to be uneven, and the thick ones stay raw while the thin ones scorch.
- The soak, and then the dryingThe half hour in cold water pulls out surface starch so the slices do not gum together. Drying them afterwards is the hinge of the recipe — wet potatoes steam instead of browning, and the cake will not hold a crust.
- QuantityNo amount is given because the pan sets it: fill a 9- or 10-inch skillet three-quarters full, which takes roughly 2 to 2 1/2 lb of potatoes. Waxy or all-purpose potatoes hold their layers better than a very floury baker.
- ButterFigure 4 to 6 tablespoons melted butter in total, including a generous coat on the pan. Clarified butter browns more cleanly at oven heat if you have it.
- The panCast iron is specified for a reason — it takes the bottom crust. Make sure the handle is ovenproof, and press the layers down firmly as you build so the cake sets as one piece.
- ServingLet it settle five minutes, then loosen the edge and invert onto a plate so the browned base shows. Serves four to six as a side.
Fannie Farmer's potato chapter is a catalogue of the ways a single cheap vegetable could be dressed up for a middle-class table, and a good many of the entries carry French names — Duchess, Lyonnaise, Parisienne — that signal refinement more than any documented regional origin. Chambéry is the old capital of Savoy, best known now for its dry vermouth, and the name here is decorative: the dish itself is the standard butter-and-potato cake of French cookery, cousin to pommes Anna. One small hint of its period is the instruction to use a vegetable slicer, a gadget that had become common enough in American kitchens by the turn of the century for a cookbook to assume one without explanation.