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Potatoes a La Parisienne
1 Wash and rub new potatoes with a coarse cloth (avoid scraping if possible), drop into boiling water, boil briskly until done, taking care not to over do (if doubtful on this point press one of the potatoes with a fork against the side of the sauce-pan, if done it will yield to a gentle pressure). Have ready, in a sauce-pan, some cream and butter hot, but not boiling, a little green parsley, pepper and salt; pour off the water from the potatoes and add the cream and butter, let stand a minute or two over hot water, and serve.
A plain dressed-potato dish that depends almost entirely on not overcooking the potatoes and not boiling the cream. The original gives no quantities, so treat it as a method.
- QuantitiesFor 2 lb of small new potatoes, allow about 1/2 cup heavy cream and 2 tablespoons butter, with a generous handful of chopped parsley. Serves four to six as a side.
- "New potatoes"Genuinely new potatoes have thin, papery skins that rub away under a cloth. Waxy varieties are the right choice; a floury baking potato will break up in the pan and turn the cream to paste.
- Rubbing, not scrapingThe instruction is deliberate. Scraping removes flesh along with skin and the potato absorbs more water; a coarse cloth or a scouring pad under running water takes only the loose skin.
- Boil brisklySalt the water well and keep it at a strong boil. Small new potatoes take 12-18 minutes depending on size; the fork test against the pan side is a good one because it detects yielding without splitting the potato.
- Cream hot but not boilingThis is the hinge. Cream brought to a boil in a thin pan will catch and can break once acid or salt is added; warm it gently to just steaming. Butter should be melted into it rather than boiled with it.
- Drying the potatoesAfter draining, return the pan to low heat for half a minute so surface water steams off. Wet potatoes dilute the cream and it will pool rather than cling.
- "Over hot water"The pan was set in or over a larger pan of hot water, in effect a double boiler. A very low burner or a low, warm oven does the same and will hold the dish briefly without curdling.
- ParsleyFlat-leaf or curly both work, chopped fine and added at the end. Added early it goes drab and loses the fresh note that is most of the point.
The name signals the fashion rather than the place: through the nineteenth century American cookbooks are often said to have attached "a la Parisienne" to dishes finished with cream, butter and fine herbs, borrowing the prestige of French restaurant cooking for domestic dishes. It is worth noting that the modern meaning of pommes parisienne, potatoes cut into small balls with a scoop and fried, is a different preparation entirely; here the potatoes are simply small and whole. The Dixie Cook Book, a large compiled household volume of the sort that circulated widely in the 1880s and 1890s, carries such lightly Frenchified titles alongside plainly named Southern dishes, and the vegetable chapter in particular reflects a period when new potatoes were a brief seasonal treat rather than a year-round staple.