No. 2789

Potatoes, Gastronome

Pommes de Terre Gastronome

From some raw potatoes trim cylindricals one inch in diameter by an inch and a quarter long; blanch them for ten minutes, then drain off and finish cooking in clarified butter; when done pour this butter off and add salt, lemon juice, a small quantity of meat glaze (No. 402), chopped truffles and a little Madeira wine. Range and serve in a vegetable dish.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A cocotte-style potato garnish from Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), meant to sit beside a roast rather than stand alone. The whole dish turns on cooking the cylinders slowly enough in clarified butter that they colour evenly without the butter browning.

Shaping the cylindersAn inch across by an inch and a quarter long is an apple corer's worth, cut from large, firm, waxy-to-all-purpose potatoes. A plain round cutter pushed through a thick slab of peeled potato gives the same result; trim the ends flat so they sit upright in the pan.
Blanch, then dryTen minutes in salted boiling water sets the outside and shortens the butter cooking. Drain and let them steam dry on a towel for a few minutes, or the wet surface will spit and refuse to colour.
Clarified butter is not optionalWhole butter's milk solids will scorch long before the potatoes are tender. Clarified butter (or ghee) holds up to the gentle frying this needs, over medium heat, turning the pieces so all sides gild; the recipe itself gives no cooking time.
Meat glaze, No. 402Ranhofer's glace de viande is brown stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm when cold. A teaspoon or two of good commercial demi-glace, or homemade veal stock reduced to a sticky glaze, does the job. It is intensely salty when concentrated, so season after it goes in.
TrufflesA small quantity, finely chopped, added off the heat so the aroma survives. Ranhofer's kitchen may as easily have used preserved truffles as fresh; preserved truffle peelings in their juice are the honest budget version. Truffle oil is a different flavour altogether and will dominate.
MadeiraA dry-ish Sercial or Verdelho, about a tablespoon, swirled in the hot pan for a few seconds so the alcohol goes and the glaze loosens into a coating. Sweet Malmsey will make the dish cloying against the meat glaze.
Order of the finishButter off first, then salt, lemon juice, glaze, truffle and wine into the same pan with the potatoes. It becomes a glaze, not a sauce; the potatoes should look lacquered, with nothing pooling in the dish.
YieldTwo large potatoes yield roughly a dozen cylinders, enough for four as a garnish. Note that floury baking potatoes are not the waxy-to-all-purpose type recommended above. The trimmings are worth keeping for soup or a rösti.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean is essentially that restaurant's working repertoire set down in print, cross-referenced by number the way a professional kitchen actually operates — hence the bare pointer to No. 402 for the meat glaze rather than a recipe in place. The name gastronome attached in nineteenth-century French kitchens to preparations dressed with the luxury markers of the era: truffle, Madeira, and a concentrated meat glaze, the same combination found in garnishes labelled à la financière. It is a telling entry in the potato section, which runs to dozens of preparations: the potato had by then risen from cheap bulk starch to something a chef would trim into precise cylinders and finish with truffle, and Delmonico's clientele expected exactly that kind of effort spent on a vegetable set beside the roast.