No. 2774

Potatoes Boiled in Their Skins or Peeled, English Style, Persillade Balls

Pommes de Terre Bouillies en Robe ou Pelees, a l'Anglaise, en Boules Persillade

Boiled in Their Skins or Peeled.—Wash some uniform-sized potatoes; cook them either by steam or in salted water from twenty-five to thirty minutes, and when nearly done (if in salted water) drain and cover with a damp cloth; put them into the oven until all their moisture has evaporated, and serve in folded napkins, with or without skins, or in a covered vegetable dish, so they keep hot.

Boiled English Style.—Peel some raw potatoes; pare them in the shape of large olives, and put them in a saucepan with salt and water; cover and let the liquid boil until the potatoes are done, then drain off the water and cover over with a cloth. Close the saucepan and set it in the oven for a few moments to dry them well; pour a little melted salt butter over and dress in a vegetable dish.

Persillade Balls are potatoes formed into balls three-quarters of an inch to one inch in diameter with a vegetable spoon (Fig. 91), and cooked the same as the English. Serve them in a vegetable dish, pour salted butter and chopped parsley over.

← No. 2773 Potatoes, Bignon Potatoes & Sweet Potatoes No. 2775 Potatoes, Bordelaise—New →

For the Modern Kitchen

Three related preparations from the same page: whole boiled potatoes, potatoes turned to olive shapes, and small scooped balls. The technique that matters in all three is the brief drying step after draining, which is what separates a mealy potato from a wet one.

The hinge: dry them after drainingOnce drained and covered with a cloth, the pan goes into the oven until the moisture has gone, as the recipe directs; no temperature is given, and a moderate oven or simply low heat with a shake of the pan will do it. Steam driven off at this stage is what gives the fluffy interior; skipping it leaves the potatoes sodden.
"A vegetable spoon" (Fig. 91)This is a parisienne scoop or melon baller. A 20-25 mm cutter gives the three-quarter-inch to one-inch balls called for; save the trimmings for soup or mash, since a potato yields perhaps half its weight in balls.
"Pare them in the shape of large olives"This is turning, or tourner: facets cut with a small knife, tapered at both ends, roughly the size of a large olive (the seven-sided count is a later convention). Identical shapes cook at identical rates, which is presumably why the shaping is called for.
"Salt butter"Salted butter, melted, not a butter sauce. Melt it gently rather than browning it, and pour over at the table so it does not soak in and go greasy.
TimingTwenty-five to thirty minutes is the recipe's figure for whole uniform-sized potatoes. Turned olives and one-inch balls will cook considerably faster; test with the point of a knife rather than following the clock, and start them in cold salted water so the outsides do not disintegrate before the centres cook.
Potato choiceFor the whole boiled version a floury potato (russet, King Edward) gives the mealy result the drying step is aiming at. For the turned olives and balls use a firm waxy potato, which holds its shape and its facets.
PersilladeHere it means only chopped parsley in butter, as the recipe states; elsewhere the term can include garlic.
Serving in a folded napkinA standard nineteenth-century service: the cloth absorbs steam so the skins do not turn slick. A warmed covered vegetable dish does the same job with less ceremony.
YieldThe original gives none. Reckon one medium potato per person for the whole boiled version, or about 8-10 turned olives or a dozen balls each as a garnish for a roast.

A Little History

Ranhofer wrote The Epicurean (1894) out of thirty years at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows how a great restaurant kitchen handled the plainest of vegetables: the same potato is offered three ways, graded by labour rather than by ingredient. The plain boiled potato in its skin, served in a folded napkin, is the English service the French menu language acknowledges in the title, a l'Anglaise; the turned olives and the scooped balls are the same potato dressed for a formal table, where uniformity of shape was the visible sign of a properly staffed kitchen. Cutting vegetables to olive shapes is generally traced to the professionalisation of French cookery in the nineteenth century, when garnishes were expected to match one another exactly; the parisienne scoop Ranhofer illustrates as Fig. 91 was one of a large family of small tools sold to that end. The persillade finish of salted butter and parsley is older and simpler, the standard dressing for boiled vegetables long before it acquired a menu name.