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Potatoes, Hollandaise
Boil six medium-sized, sound potatoes in two quarts of boiling water with a teaspoon of salt for thirty-five minutes, then peel and cut them lengthwise into even quarters. Place them in a sautoire with a light tablespoon butter and half a teaspoon finely chopped parsley. Season with half a teaspoon salt and a saltspoon white pepper. Toss them gently while warming for five minutes. Dress on a hot dish and serve.
A plain buttered potato under a French menu name. The only real technique is handling the quarters gently enough that they arrive whole.
- No sauce involvedDespite the name, nothing hollandaise-like is made here. Pommes à la hollandaise means boiled potatoes finished with butter and parsley, in the Dutch manner; if you were expecting egg-and-butter emulsion, this is a different dish entirely.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is about 1/4 teaspoon. A "light tablespoon" of butter means a scant one, roughly 1/2 oz.
- SautoireA straight-sided shallow pan with a wide base — a modern sauté pan or large skillet. Choose one big enough to hold 24 potato quarters in a single layer, or they will break up when moved.
- Choose waxy potatoesThe recipe depends on quarters that hold their shape. Yukon Gold, red-skinned or other waxy varieties survive boiling whole and quartering; a floury russet will slump.
- Thirty-five minutes is for whole, unpeeled potatoesBoiling in the skin keeps them from waterlogging, and the timing is reasonable for medium ones. Test with a skewer rather than trusting the clock — pull them when just tender, since they get five more minutes in the pan.
- Peel them hotThe skins slip off easily while the potatoes are still steaming, which is why the recipe peels after boiling rather than before. A cloth or a fork to hold them makes it manageable.
- The five minutes in butterThis is warming and coating, not browning. Shake the pan or use a spoon to roll the pieces over rather than stirring, and keep the heat moderate so the parsley stays green.
- YieldSix potatoes serve four to six as a side dish. Warm the serving platter — buttered potatoes go dull and greasy the moment they cool.
In the French kitchen classification that governed hotel and cookbook writing around 1900, almost every potato preparation was given a garnish name, and à la hollandaise was the label for the simplest of them: boiled, peeled, buttered, parsleyed. The association with Holland is traditional rather than documented, and probably reflects the long-standing Northern European habit of serving plain boiled potatoes with butter as the default accompaniment to fish. Its appearance in an English-language collection shows how thoroughly the French naming system had colonised even the plainest food on a menu — a dish a farm cook made without a name at all acquired one in print.