No. 2776

Potatoes Broiled with Fried Bread-Raspings

Pommes de Terre Grillees a la Chapelure Frite

To prepare broiled potatoes boiled ones are generally used, cut in half-inch thick slices; lay them on a double-hinged broiler, salt and baste with melted butter, then place the broiler over a slow fire, and cook the potatoes to a good color; dress them in the center of a dish. Fry fresh bread-crumbs in butter, and when a fine golden brown pour over the potatoes, and serve.

← No. 2775 Potatoes, Bordelaise—New Potatoes & Sweet Potatoes No. 2777 Potatoes, Bussy →

For the Modern Kitchen

A plain side dish from Ranhofer's potato chapter, and one that depends entirely on the potatoes being cooked and cooled before they meet the fire. The whole point is contrast: a dry, browned slice under a spoonful of butter-fried crumbs.

Start a day ahead if you canBoil the potatoes whole in their skins, then chill them thoroughly before peeling and slicing. Warm boiled potato crumbles the moment it hits a broiler; cold, firm potato holds a half-inch slice intact.
Choose a waxy varietyYukon Gold, red-skinned or fingerling potatoes slice cleanly. Russets and other floury bakers will fall apart on the grate no matter how cold they are.
The double-hinged broilerA hinged wire basket with a long handle, clamped shut so the contents could be flipped over the coals in one motion. A fish grilling basket is the same tool; a well-seasoned ridged grill pan or a heavy skillet will do the same work indoors.
"A slow fire"Coals burned down past their flame, radiating steady moderate heat rather than searing. The book gives no temperature; on a gas or charcoal grill, aim for medium or lower. High heat marks the outside before the slice has dried and firmed.
Bread-raspingsNineteenth-century kitchens rasped the hard crust off stale loaves with a grater and kept the resulting crumbs as a standing pantry item. The recipe as written calls for fresh bread-crumbs; dry, fine, unseasoned crumbs are the modern equivalent of raspings, and panko is coarser and more shard-like than either.
Frying the crumbsUse clarified butter or watch whole butter closely. Crumbs go from pale to golden to burnt in well under a minute, so pull the pan the moment the color is right and pour them over at once.
BastingBrush both faces with melted butter before the potatoes go on and again after the first turn. This is what colors them; unbuttered slices dry out and stay gray.
YieldRoughly 2 lb of potatoes and about a cup of crumbs fried in 3 tablespoons of butter serves four as a side.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a working reference rather than a home cookbook, which is why the potato chapter runs to scores of numbered variations distinguished by nothing more than a sauce or a garnish. This one belongs to the French professional habit of naming a dish for its finish: a la chapelure frite means simply "with fried crumbs," the same buttered-crumb topping that appears on cauliflower, asparagus and boiled fish across the period, often listed in English kitchens as "Polonaise" when chopped egg and parsley were added. Rasping stale crust for crumbs was a daily chore in a large kitchen, and it is reasonable to suppose that recipes like this one existed partly to use up what the bread station produced. The reliance on already-boiled potatoes may point the same way: one imagines a restaurant serving hundreds of covers keeping cooked potatoes on hand and reheating them a dozen different ways rather than starting from raw to order, though the practice is not documented.