No. 2784

Potatoes, half-Glaze

Pommes de Terre Demi-Glace

Prepare potatoes the same as for gastronome (No. 2789), lay them in a sautoir with clarified butter, without having them previously boiled; when nearly done change into another saucepan and moisten with a little gravy (No. 404), espagnole sauce (No. 414) and meat-glaze (No. 402); cover the pan and cook so that the liquid be reduced to the consistency of a half-glaze as soon as the potatoes are finished.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A two-line professional note from Ranhofer that assumes you have a stocked sauce station. Everything hinges on the potatoes being cooked through in butter alone before any liquid touches them.

What "same as for gastronome" meansNo. 2789 sets out how the raw potatoes are to be cut, to a uniform small shape; the form is specified there rather than here. Uniformity is the whole point, since they cook in fat and finish in a reducing sauce with no chance to correct stragglers.
SautoirA straight-sided shallow pan, wider than deep. A 10- to 12-inch skillet or saute pan works. Crowding is the enemy: the potatoes should sit in one layer or they steam instead of colouring.
Clarified butter, and whyWhole butter will burn before raw potatoes are cooked through. Clarified butter, ghee, or a butter-and-neutral-oil mix carries the higher heat. Allow anything from roughly 15 to 30 minutes over medium heat, turning, depending on how small the potatoes are cut.
The three saucesGravy (No. 404) is a reduced brown stock; espagnole (No. 414) is the flour-thickened brown mother sauce; meat glaze (No. 402) is stock reduced to a syrup. In a modern kitchen, a good reduced brown veal or beef stock plus a spoonful of commercial demi-glace concentrate covers all three. Use very little — perhaps 1/2 cup total for 2 lb of potatoes.
"Half-glaze" is a target, not an ingredientDemi-glace here describes the consistency the liquid must reach: glossy, coating, just clinging to the potatoes. Reduce uncovered at the end if it is still loose; add a spoonful of stock if it tightens before the potatoes are tender.
Change the panRanhofer moves the potatoes to a second saucepan but does not say why; leaving the cooking butter behind at least keeps the reducing sauce from turning greasy.
Season lateMeat glaze and reduced espagnole are salty, and reduction concentrates them further. Salt only after the sauce has come to its final consistency.
YieldRoughly 2 lb of potatoes serves six as a side. Serve immediately — held warm, the glaze dulls and the potatoes go soft.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for some three decades, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially his service manual, printed with the cross-references intact because he expected a cook to have the brigade's sauces already made. That is why this entry can be so short: the gravy, the espagnole and the meat glaze were standing preparations at the back of the range, and a garnish potato was simply a vehicle for them. The book gives dozens of numbered potato treatments running together — Dauphine, half-glaze, Duchess, gastronome among them — which reflects the late nineteenth-century restaurant habit of distinguishing dishes by a single variation in shape or finishing sauce. The name is borrowed straight from the sauce lexicon: demi-glace, half-glaze, sits between a sauce and a full meat glaze in strength, and here it describes the state the pan liquid must reach rather than a bottled item on the shelf.