No. 2749

Jerusalem Artichokes a la Salamander

Topinambours a la Salamandre

Pare Jerusalem artichokes into three-quarter inch rounds, or else in the shape of a pigeon's egg; cook in salted water, drain and saute in butter without letting attain a color. Prepare a puree by placing some peeled Jerusalem artichokes in a saucepan to boil; drain when done, and cover over with a damp cloth; dry in the oven, then press through a sieve. Return this puree to the saucepan; season with salt, nutmeg, fresh butter and egg-yolks, and form it into a border inside a dish, either pushed through a channeled socket pocket or else modeled with the hand; lay the sauted Jerusalem artichokes in the center, strew grated parmesan over, cover with some rather thin cream bechamel sauce (No. 411), and then more parmesan; color in a brisk oven, serving it immediately after it is baked to a golden brown.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's dish is two preparations of the same root served together: turned pieces sauteed pale in butter, ringed by a stiff puree, gratineed under fierce top heat. The hinge is the puree — it must be dried hard before the yolks go in, or the border slumps into the sauce.

"A la salamandre"The salamander was a heated iron plate or, later, a gas-fired overhead grill used to glaze the tops of dishes. Use a broiler on its highest setting with the dish 4-5 inches below the element, or the top shelf of a very hot oven; "brisk oven" means as hot as the oven will run — around 450-475F in modern terms — though the book itself gives no figures.
TopinamboursJerusalem artichokes, also sold as sunchokes — knobby tubers of a sunflower relative, unrelated to globe artichokes. Buy firm ones; shrivelled tubers peel badly and turn grey. The recipe gives no quantities; on the order of 2 1/2 lb of tubers should cover both the border and the center.
Pared into rounds or pigeon's-egg shapesA pigeon's egg is roughly 1 1/2 inches long. Cutting the knobs down to even 3/4-inch discs or small ovals is mostly waste with a modern sunchoke, so keep the trimmings for the puree rather than discarding them.
DiscolorationPeeled sunchokes brown quickly. Hold them in water with a squeeze of lemon, and cook the sauteed pieces in butter over moderate heat only until tender — the instruction "without letting attain a color" means blond, not browned, so the contrast with the gratineed top is preserved.
Drying the pureeThe damp cloth is there to stop a skin forming while the tubers steam off. Then spread the drained tubers in a shallow pan and dry in a low oven, around 300F, for 10-15 minutes before sieving. Sunchokes have little of potato's starch to bind them, so the puree stays slack; skip this and no quantity of yolk will hold the shape.
Egg yolksTwo or three yolks for this volume, beaten into the hot puree off the heat with the butter so they thicken rather than scramble. Nutmeg is meant to be barely detectable.
"Channeled socket pocket"A pastry bag with a fluted tube. A large star tip piping a raised ring inside the rim of a shallow gratin dish gives what Ranhofer intended; a spoon and a wet hand do the same job less neatly.
Bechamel No. 411Ranhofer's cream bechamel is a bechamel enriched with cream; check No. 411 for his proportions rather than assuming them. Make it thin — pourable, not coating — since it reduces fast under the broiler and the parmesan tightens it further.
Yield and timingNo yield is given; the quantities suit a vegetable course for roughly six. Under a hot broiler the top colors in 3-5 minutes; assemble everything hot and serve straight from the dish, as the instruction to serve it immediately is not decorative — the border softens as it stands.

A Little History

Jerusalem artichokes reached Europe from eastern North America in the early seventeenth century and were briefly a staple before the potato displaced them; the name is generally traced to a corruption of the Italian girasole, sunflower, rather than to any connection with Jerusalem. The French topinambour comes from the Tupinambá, a Brazilian people whose delegation was in Paris around the same period the tuber arrived — a confusion of two New World novelties. By the time Charles Ranhofer was cooking at Delmonico's in New York, the sunchoke had settled into the restaurant repertoire as a vegetable entremets, treated much as a potato would be: turned, sauteed, pureed, piped, gratineed. That The Epicurean (1894) devotes several numbered receipts to it, all in the French idiom, says less about American home cooking than about the reach of the classical kitchen brigade, where any root could be put through the standard set of operations and come out with a French name.