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Potatoes, Vauban
Cut four medium, peeled and washed potatoes into dice-square pieces, plunge them in boiling water for two minutes, drain on a sieve; heat one tablespoon butter in a large frying pan, add the potatoes, season with half teaspoon salt and two saltspoons white pepper and gently fry them for ten minutes, or until a good golden colour, frequently tossing them meanwhile. Dress on a hot dish and serve.
A plain French fried-potato garnish, and the whole thing turns on the two-minute blanch: it sets the outside of the dice so they hold their shape and cuts the frying time in half.
- SaltspoonAn old measure equal to about a quarter teaspoon. Two saltspoons of white pepper is roughly half a teaspoon, which is assertive but correct for this dish.
- The dice"Dice-square" means an even cube; the recipe specifies no size. Uniformity matters more than size here, since the pieces cook by contact with the pan and odd shapes burn at the corners.
- Blanch, then dryTwo minutes in boiling water, as directed; longer and the cubes are too soft to hold their shape in the pan. The recipe says only to drain on a sieve, but letting the surface steam dry first helps, since wet potatoes will not brown well in butter.
- More fat than statedOne tablespoon of butter is thin coverage for four potatoes in a large pan. Two to three tablespoons, or butter cut with a neutral oil, browns them more evenly and is less likely to burn during the ten minutes.
- Pan and heatUse the largest heavy skillet you have and keep the potatoes in a single layer over medium heat. Crowding steams them into a mash instead of colouring them.
- Tossing"Frequently tossing" is the instruction to obey literally. Ten minutes with only occasional attention gives you two brown faces and four pale ones.
- YieldFour medium potatoes serve three or four as a side dish. Serve immediately on a warmed platter; these do not hold.
Dishes carrying the name Vauban are generally traced to Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, the marshal and military engineer who built Louis XIV's fortresses, and the label is sometimes said, though this is no more than folk interpretation, to be a nod to his geometry: neat, squared-off blocks laid out in order. Nineteenth-century French professional kitchens named garnishes after soldiers, statesmen and singers with great freedom, and the names attached themselves to a cut or a shape rather than to a fixed set of ingredients, so there is no single authoritative Vauban. Its appearance here shows how thoroughly the grand-restaurant vocabulary of potato garnishes had spread into American cookbooks: the same potato, differently cut, could be sold under a dozen distinguished names.