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Potatoes Provincial
Trim into the shape of corks some raw potatoes, and cut them across into three-sixteenths of an inch in thickness, and wipe them perfectly dry. Then saute slowly in oil, and allow plenty of time for cooking; after which, add a little garlic and onion chopped very fine, salt and finish them in the oven just previous to serving, and drain off the butter and sprinkle over chopped parsley and lemon juice.
A plain garlic-and-parsley potato saute, written in the shorthand of a professional kitchen that assumed you knew the rest. Two details carry the dish: the potatoes must be bone dry before they hit the fat, and the garlic goes in near the end.
- "The shape of corks"Trim peeled potatoes into cylinders of roughly cork width, about an inch across (the recipe gives no measurement), then slice into rounds. A large waxy or all-purpose potato gives the most usable cylinders; the trimmings go to soup.
- Three-sixteenths of an inchAbout 5 mm, a shade thicker than a standard mandoline setting. Thick enough to hold together through a long saute and a spell in the oven without collapsing.
- Wipe them perfectly dryThis is the hinge. Surface starch and water make the slices steam and stick rather than brown. Rinsing off the cut starch and drying thoroughly in a towel is the usual way to get there; the recipe asks only that they be wiped perfectly dry.
- Saute slowlyModerate heat in a wide pan, shaken rather than stirred, for 15 to 20 minutes. Raw potato needs to cook through before the outside colours; rushing gives a browned slice with a chalky centre.
- Garlic and onion lateThey go in only after the potatoes are nearly done. Chopped fine and added at the start they would blacken over the long saute and turn the whole pan bitter.
- Oil, then butterThe recipe starts in oil and ends by draining off butter. That may be an inconsistency in the compressed text, or it may reflect the common habit of finishing with butter for flavour and pouring off the excess. If you want the dish as written, add a knob of butter in the last minute.
- Finishing in the ovenThe recipe gives no temperature. A hot oven for five to ten minutes just before service will crisp the edges.
- YieldNot given. Reckon one large potato per person as a side dish, and use a pan wide enough that the slices sit in a single layer.
- The finishParsley and lemon juice go on off the heat, at the last moment. Lemon added earlier dulls, and parsley in a hot oven goes drab.
Oscar Tschirky, the maitre d'hotel whose name fronts this 1896 volume, catalogued the Waldorf's repertoire in the compressed style a professional would recognise, and "provincial" here is most likely a rendering of a la provencale: garlic, olive oil, parsley and usually tomato, the standard French kitchen signal for the south of France. The combination of garlic and chopped parsley strewn on at the last moment is old enough to have its own name, persillade, and appears across French cooking on potatoes, mushrooms and roast meats alike. What dates the dish to a grand hotel rather than a home kitchen is the labour: turning raw potatoes into uniform cylinders so that every slice is the same diameter is work that only makes sense when someone else is doing it, and when the plate is expected to look composed.