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Potatoes, Bordelaise
Peel four medium, sound, raw potatoes. Finely slice them and wash in cold water; drain, plunge them into boiling fat and fry for five minutes. Remove, drain on a cloth. Heat one light tablespoon butter in a frying pan, adding one finely chopped white onion and cook for three minutes. Add the potatoes, season with half teaspoon salt and two saltspoons pepper, toss well and slowly fry them for twenty minutes, frequently turning them meanwhile. Dredge over half a teaspoon of freshly chopped parsley, toss a little, dress on a hot dish and serve.
A two-stage potato dish: blanch-fry the slices, then finish them slowly with onion and butter. The hinge is the second cooking, which is long and gentle rather than a quick toss.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so two of them means a half teaspoon of pepper for four potatoes. That is assertive by modern taste; a quarter teaspoon is closer to what most cooks would want, and it can be adjusted at the end.
- Frying fat and temperature"Boiling fat" means deep fat hot enough to fry, not fat that is literally boiling; the recipe gives no temperature, and a moderate deep-frying heat is the usual modern equivalent. Five minutes should soften the slices and colour them lightly without crisping them through, which is what you want before the second stage.
- Dry the slicesThe washing removes surface starch so the slices do not stick together, but they must be patted properly dry before they go into hot fat. Wet potatoes will spit violently.
- Choose a waxy potato"Sound" simply means unblemished and not sprouted. Use a waxy or all-purpose potato; a floury baking potato will collapse over the twenty-minute second frying.
- The slow fryTwenty minutes over low-to-moderate heat, turning often, is the point of the dish. The onion sweetens and the slices take on an even golden crust; rushing it burns the onion and leaves the potato pale.
- Butter quantityOne "light" tablespoon is a scant tablespoon, and it is barely enough for twenty minutes in a modern thin pan. Use a heavy skillet, and add a little more butter if the pan goes dry.
- YieldFour potatoes serve three to four as a side dish. Serve immediately; the slices soften as they sit.
À la bordelaise on nineteenth-century French menus is a loose label rather than one formula: applied to steak it means a red wine and marrow sauce, but applied to vegetables, mushrooms or potatoes it generally means a sauté finished with onion or shallot, sometimes garlic, and chopped parsley. This potato version belongs to the vegetable sense, and the two-stage method behind it — a first fry to cook the slices through, a second to colour and flavour them — is the same logic French kitchens applied to pommes frites, where blanching in cooler fat precedes the final crisping.