POMMES DE TERRE A LA MAITRE D'HOTEL

{These French recipies are from a French cookbook called La Cuisine:  Guide Practique de la Ménagère by Chef R. Blondeau.  This book was passed down to me from my great-grandmother, who was from Alsace, a North-eastern region on the Rhine river plain in France.  It was published in 1930 as a guide for cooks hired to cook for upper-middle class families.

As a fun project, I am translating the recipes from French, testing them out with home-grown or raised food, and re-writing them in a modern format, with notes about what worked for me in the kitchen} 

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 In the garden, the potato plants have keeled over and turned brown, a sign that they are not going to grow much larger, and are ready to dig.  They are not as large as they have been in other years, perhaps because it has been very dry and I haven't irrigated them.  But they taste, somehow, more potato-y than usual potatoes.

This potato recipe is very simple - and indeed, most of the nineteen potato recipes given in La Cuisine are quite simple.  With parsley still going in the garden, but looking inclined to bolt, I thought I'd better try this one first.  But there are still two and a half large beds left to dig, so look forward to more potato recipes in future!

To begin the section on potatoes (in French "Les Pommes de Terre," or Earth Apples), Chef R. Blondeau offers some counsel on potato varieties.  The white, round, crumbly type of potato is used in purees and soups, but the firmer, longer potato types are used for a dish like this one, as they stay together and don't crumble with cooking.  I am not familiar with the varieties listed that make good "pan" potatoes rather than soup potatoes - Hollande, Vitelottes, or Saucisse. These were (I think) Red Pontiac potatoes.

 POMMES DE TERRE A LA MAITRE D'HOTEL (The Butler's Potatoes)

Wash your potatoes, cook them in salted water, drain them, peel off the skin, cut them into thin slices (across), and brown them in 60 grams of butter with chopped parsley, salt and pepper.  Serve.

 

 Butler's Potatoes - a modern version

Potatoes (about 1 1/2 to 2 lbs for a family of four)

Salt

Water for boiling

3 Tablespoons butter

Fresh parsley, chopped

Salt and pepper to season

1.  Put the washed potatoes in a large-enough pot and cover with water.  Add a pinch of salt and cook until just tender.

2.  Drain them, and peel off the skins.  Slice the cooled potatoes into thin slices across.

3.  In a pan, melt the butter and brown the potato slices.  Season with chopped parsley, salt, and pepper.

Notes:  My potatoes were so new and fresh, the skins were very tender and I did not remove them after cooking.  Be careful not to overcook the potatoes during the boiling, or they might crumble too much when you try to slice them.  Red Pontiac potatoes ended up working very well for this recipe.