No. 2805

Potatoes Sauted with Artichoke Bottoms and Truffles

Pommes de Terre Sautees aux Fonds d'Artichauts et aux Truffes

Trim long potatoes, shaping them into cylinders one inch in diameter; cut them into three sixteenths of an inch thick slices, drain and dry on a cloth; also trim small artichoke bottoms, cut them in four pieces, and pare. Heat a liberal quantity of good oil in a sautoir; put in the potatoes and artichoke bottoms, and cook while tossing to have them attain a color; drain when done, and add salt and butter; shake off of the fire until the butter dissolves, then add minced truffles cooked in Madeira wine, tossing continually in the meanwhile: serve up in a vegetable dish.

← No. 2804 Potatoes Sauted Potatoes & Sweet Potatoes No. 2806 Potatoes in the Shape of an Omelet →

For the Modern Kitchen

A straightforward saute, but the success of it rests on getting the potatoes dry and the fat hot enough that the slices color rather than steam.

The hinge: dry slices, hot oilRanhofer's instruction to drain and dry the slices on a cloth is the whole recipe. Wet potato in oil gives a pale, soggy result; blot them thoroughly and use enough oil to come partway up the slices in a wide pan.
Sizes in modern termsCylinders one inch across, sliced three sixteenths of an inch thick, is roughly 2.5 cm by 5 mm. Turning the potatoes into even cylinders wastes a good deal of flesh; save the trimmings for soup or mash.
SautoirA straight-sided shallow pan, essentially a modern saute pan or a heavy skillet. It needs to be wide enough that the slices lie in one loose layer.
Artichoke bottomsFresh globe artichokes trimmed to the fleshy base, choke and leaves removed. Frozen artichoke bottoms are the practical substitute; jarred ones packed in brine tend to be softer and more acidic. The recipe puts them raw into the pan with the potatoes, though as they may cook more slowly a brief blanching first is one way to even things out.
Butter off the heatThe butter is added after draining, away from the flame, so it emulsifies onto the hot slices instead of browning. Do this in the pan off the burner, tossing, exactly as written.
Truffles in MadeiraTruffle cooked briefly in Madeira and added at the end. The Epicurean commonly calls for truffles by the ounce; a modern cook will use a few grams shaved fine, or accept that the dish becomes potatoes and artichokes with Madeira butter. Truffle oil is a different flavor and does not stand in.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years in the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry is typical of how the book handles vegetables: not one potato recipe but dozens, each a small permutation of shape, fat and garnish, numbered in sequence as a reference convention. The pairing of potato with artichoke bottoms and truffle is pure high French service of the period, when truffles were a routine flourish on restaurant menus rather than a luxury measured out in grams, and Madeira was often reached for as a kitchen wine for warming aromatics. The near-industrial precision of the measurements here, cylinders of a stated diameter cut to a stated thickness, reflects a brigade kitchen where uniform pieces meant uniform cooking across many covers at once.