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Potatoes, Windsor
Peel and wash four sound, large potatoes; then with a Parisian potato scoop dip out as many pieces as you can. Place them in a small saucepan with enough water to cover them. Season with a teaspoon salt and boil for ten minutes; drain them well, replace in the same pan with half ounce butter, season with a saltspoon salt and a saltspoon white pepper and squeeze in the juice of half a sound lemon. Mix well for a minute and a half, being careful not to break them. Dress on a deep dish and serve.
A straightforward potato garnish that lives or dies on the shape of the pieces and on not overcooking them. Two pieces of equipment and vocabulary need translating.
- Parisian potato scoopThis is the small round cutter sold today as a melon baller, made in a range of diameters (the recipe does not specify one). Press it into the peeled potato and twist to release a sphere; a full-round double-cup baller gives the neatest results.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. The teaspoon of salt earlier in the recipe goes into the cooking water, not onto the finished potatoes.
- Half ounce butterAbout one tablespoon, or 14 g. It is meant to coat rather than to make a sauce, so keep the pan moving over low heat and let the lemon juice and butter emulsify around the potatoes.
- The ten minutesThe recipe never states a ball size, so treat the time as approximate: larger scoops will want the full ten minutes, smaller ones less. Test one with a knife tip rather than trusting the clock, since blown-out potato will not survive the tossing step.
- Tossing without breakingThe hinge of the dish. Use a shallow pan and shake it by the handle rather than stirring with a spoon, and give it the full minute and a half so the surfaces glaze instead of sitting wet.
- The trimmingsFour large potatoes yield surprisingly little once scooped. Keep the offcuts for mash, soup or a potato cake.
- YieldProbably enough for two to four as a side, depending on how efficiently you scoop; the recipe gives no yield. Serve at once in the deep dish it calls for, since the butter and lemon congeal quickly.
Potatoes cut into small spheres and finished in butter are the classic pommes parisienne of the professional French kitchen, and the tool takes its name from the same source. The addition of lemon juice and white pepper, and the English royal name, are usually said to follow a nineteenth-century restaurant habit of tagging a standard garnish with a place or a patron to fill out a long menu card, though this is convention rather than documented practice.