No. 2797

Potatoes, Marchioness

Pommes de Terre Marquise

Peel and cut up some raw potatoes; boil them in salted water, drain it off as soon as they are done and cover over with a clean cloth; let steam for a few moments in a slack oven, then remove and rub a few at a time through a sieve; put this puree into a saucepan, and for each pound stir in quickly one ounce of butter, five raw egg-yolks, salt, nutmeg, a pinch of sugar and two tablespoonfuls of good raw cream. Pour the preparation on a floured table, roll it into thick corkshaped pieces and cut these across in ovals two inches wide, three inches long and half an inch thick; range them in a copper baking pan with hot clarified butter and brown on both sides in the oven, turning them over while cooking.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is a duchesse-type potato paste, shaped and browned in butter rather than piped and glazed. Everything depends on how dry the potato is before the enrichment goes in.

The hinge: dry potatoesWet puree will not hold a shape and will drink butter in the pan. Drain hard, cover with a cloth to absorb steam, then dry the potatoes further in the oven until the surface looks floury and matte.
"Slack oven"A slack or cool oven is roughly 250-300F. It is being used here only to drive off moisture, not to colour anything, so a few minutes on a sheet pan at that heat is the intent.
Browning temperatureThe final browning is not specified. A hot oven, 425-450F, gives colour before the interior overcooks; turn the pieces once when the underside is set and golden.
Choice of potatoUse a floury variety - russet or a similar baking potato. Waxy potatoes give a gluey, elastic paste when riced and beaten with butter and yolk.
Rub through a sieveA drum sieve or a potato ricer, working while the potato is hot. A food processor will turn the starch to paste and the mixture will be sticky and unworkable.
Five yolks to the poundThat is a very rich binding by modern standards but it is what makes the paste roll and hold. Add the yolks off direct heat, stirring quickly, so they thicken rather than scramble.
"Good raw cream"Raw here means uncooked, not unpasteurized as a selling point. Ordinary heavy cream, straight from the carton, is the equivalent - two tablespoons per pound of potato.
Chill before shapingThe book sends the mixture straight from the saucepan to the floured table, so presumably still warm. It is far easier to shape if the mixture is spread on a tray and cooled first; flour the surface lightly, roll into cylinders, and cut the ovals as described.
Clarified butterWhole butter will burn at browning heat. Clarified butter, or a neutral oil with a spoonful of butter for flavour, keeps the surfaces clean. A heavy skillet stands in for the copper pan.
YieldA pound of potatoes makes a dozen or so pieces at the stated dimensions, enough to serve as a garnish alongside a roast.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) records the kitchen of Delmonico's in New York, and its potato chapter is essentially a catalogue of the French repertoire as it was practised in a large brigade: dozens of variations built from the same duchesse base of dried potato puree, butter and egg yolk, distinguished by shape, garnish or a single added ingredient. Naming them after ranks and titles - Marshal, Marquise, Duchesse, Dauphine - was a nineteenth-century convention rather than a claim about any particular marquise. In later French practice, as set down in the codified repertoire, pommes marquise came to mean duchesse mixture flavoured and tinted with tomato puree; Ranhofer's version has no tomato and is defined instead by its shaping and its pan-browning, a reminder that these names were not yet fixed when he was writing.