No. 2807

Potato Shavings

Pommes de Terre en Copeaux

These are to be cut with a special machine; they are shaped like thin spirals. Leave them soak in cold water for two hours, then drain well, and place inside a hinged double broiler to keep them apart; fry the same as the channeled potatoes (No. 2787).

← No. 2806 Potatoes in the Shape of an Omelet Potatoes & Sweet Potatoes No. 2808 Potatoes Souffled →

For the Modern Kitchen

A garnish cut, not a dish in itself: long spiral ribbons of potato, soaked, dried, and deep-fried crisp. Ranhofer assumes you have read No. 2787 for the frying method, so the useful work here is filling in what he left implicit.

The "special machine"Ranhofer specifies only a machine; most likely one of the spiral cutters of the period, which pared a potato into a long ribbon. A modern spiralizer on its widest ribbon blade, or a sharp swivel peeler run down a large potato, gives much the same result. Aim for shavings no thicker than a coin or they will brown outside before they crisp.
The hinged double broilerNot a broiler in the modern sense but a hinged wire grill, two mesh plates clamped together, used to hold delicate items flat in hot fat. A flat frying basket or two small cooling racks clipped together does the job; without something to keep the spirals apart they mat into a solid clump.
Why the two-hour soakCold water leaches surface starch so the shavings fry separate and pale-gold rather than sticking and scorching. Ranhofer says only to drain them well; in practice dry them thoroughly before they go near fat, between towels or in a salad spinner, or the water will spit out of the oil.
Frying temperatureRanhofer gives no temperature, here or in the frying instructions he refers back to. For shavings this thin, a single fry at around 350-360F works; they colour in one to two minutes, and there is no advantage in double-frying something this delicate.
FatRanhofer does not name a frying fat here; the period kitchen would have used clarified beef fat or lard. Any neutral oil with a high smoke point works.
Seasoning and timingSalt the moment they come out of the fat, while the surface is still hot enough to hold it, and serve within a few minutes. They soften quickly in a covered dish.
YieldOne large russet gives a generous handful, enough to crown a single plated portion. Reckon a potato per two people if the shavings are a garnish, one each if they are being passed as a savoury.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer spent more than thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is the encyclopaedic record of that kitchen. The stretch of numbered entries around this one, running from channeled and straw potatoes through soufflees and potatoes cut to look like an omelet, shows how far the fashion for decorative potato cutting had gone in the late nineteenth century: a single vegetable was expected to appear in a dozen distinct silhouettes. Ranhofer takes a mechanical spiral cutter for granted, and the same principle survives in the countertop spiralizer. Copeaux is simply the French for wood shavings, the curl a plane throws off a board, which is exactly what the finished garnish looks like.