No. 2780

Potatoes Chopped with Cream, and Baked

Pommes de Terre Hachees a la Creme et au Gratin

Peel some boiled potatoes after they are cold; chop them up and lay in a sautoir with butter, salt, nutmeg, white pepper and cream; boil and simmer until the preparation has acquired a sufficient consistency, then serve in a vegetable dish.

Baked.-Butter the bottom of a dish, bestrew it with bread-raspings, and fill slightly bomb-shaped with chopped potatoes and cream as the above; dredge more bread-raspings over, pour on some butter, wipe the edges of the dish, and bake in a hot oven.

← No. 2779 Potato Cakes with Ham Potatoes & Sweet Potatoes No. 2781 Potatoes, Cream Of, Baked →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer gives two finishes from one base: a creamed potato hash cooked down on the stove, and the same mixture baked under crumbs. Neither is mashed potato — the point is distinct chopped pieces bound by reduced cream.

Chop, do not mashBoil the potatoes whole in their skins the day before and chill them thoroughly; cold, firm potatoes cut into clean dice or coarse shreds instead of smearing. Working warm potatoes with cream gives a gluey paste, which is the one way this dish fails.
SautoirA straight-sided shallow pan, roughly what is now sold as a sauté pan or sauteuse. Wide surface matters here because the cream has to reduce quickly without the potatoes stewing to mush.
Cream quantityNone is given. Figure about 1/2 cup heavy cream per pound of cooked potatoes, added in two stages, and stop when the mixture holds a shape on the spoon. Cream of this period was unstandardised, so judge by consistency rather than measure.
Bread-raspingsDried crusts grated or pounded to a fine sandy crumb — closer to modern fine dry breadcrumbs than to panko. They line the dish so the gratin releases, and they should be fine enough to form a shell rather than a layer of chunks.
"Bomb-shaped"Mound the mixture into a low dome in the middle of the dish rather than levelling it. The raised centre browns first and gives the finished gratin its shape.
Hot ovenThe book gives no temperature; a "hot oven" is usually taken today as somewhere around 425-450F. This is a browning bake, not a cooking bake: everything inside is already cooked, so check after 15-20 minutes, once the crust is set and the interior hot through.
SeasoningNutmeg and white pepper are doing real work — grate the nutmeg fresh and keep it just short of noticeable. White pepper is the usual choice in a pale cream preparation, presumably to avoid dark specks.
YieldTwo pounds of boiled potatoes with cream serves six as a side dish, in a shallow gratin dish of about 1 1/2 quarts.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) records the kitchen of Delmonico's in New York, and its potato chapter runs to dozens of numbered variations, each a small permutation of shape, fat and finish — a working reference for cooks turning out à la carte garnishes. This entry is a good example of the method: one base preparation, then au gratin as an alternative service, with the neighbouring numbers offering potato cakes with ham on one side and a baked cream of potatoes on the other. Gratin in this period means the browned crust itself, from the French for the scrapings one grates off a dish, and bread-raspings were the standard way to get it — a use for stale crusts that every professional kitchen had in quantity.