No. 2792
Potatoes, Julienne or Straw
Pommes de Terre Julienne ou Pommes de Terre Paille
Ranhofer assumes you have already read No. 2787 and know how his fried potatoes are handled, so the entry is really just a cutting specification. The frying is where it succeeds or fails.
- The cutJulienne here means matchsticks about an eighth of an inch square, cut from eighth-inch slices. Pommes paille (straw) are cut from the same slices but shredded much finer -- Ranhofer gives no figure, only "much thinner" -- which is why they crisp through rather than staying soft in the centre.
- Rinse and drySurface starch is what makes cut potatoes stick together in the fat. Rinse the fillets in cold water until it runs clear, then dry them thoroughly on towels; wet potatoes will drop the oil temperature and spit.
- Fat temperatureRanhofer gives none, deferring to No. 2787. In modern practice straw potatoes are thin enough to cook in one pass at 350-360F, about two to three minutes, until pale gold; julienne are often given a two-stage treatment: 300-325F until limp but not coloured, drained and rested, then a second plunge at 375-385F to colour and crisp.
- What Ranhofer fried inA kitchen of this period would have deep fried in animal fat, lard or beef fat, rather than a vegetable oil. Peanut, refined sunflower or another neutral high-smoke-point oil will serve.
- Batch sizeFry in small handfuls. A large mass of thin potato drops the fat temperature sharply, and the strands weld into a mat instead of separating.
- Salt at the endSalt only after draining, while the potatoes are still glossy with fat. Salted before frying they weep moisture and go limp.
- Potato choiceUse a dry, floury variety - russet or a similar baking potato. Waxy new potatoes hold too much water and will not crisp at these thicknesses.
- YieldThe original gives none. Reckon on one medium potato, roughly 6-7 oz, as a garnish portion alongside a steak or a roast bird; two per person if they are the main starch.
Charles Ranhofer wrote The Epicurean (1894) out of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its potato chapter is essentially a catalogue of the shapes a French-trained kitchen was expected to produce on demand. Julienne is usually said to take its name from the fine shred long used for clear vegetable soups, though the derivation is not documented; pommes paille simply means straw potatoes, after the look of the pile. Both belong to the family of deep-fried cuts codified in nineteenth-century French practice, alongside the channelled, the souffl e and the allumette, and the distinction between them is purely one of thickness - which is why Ranhofer can dispose of the whole thing in two sentences and a cross-reference. Straw potatoes remained a standard restaurant garnish for grilled meats well into the twentieth century, and survive on menus today as the tangle piled on a steak or tucked into a sandwich.