Fondant Potatoes

Cylinders browned cut side down in butter and then braised in stock poured to exactly half their depth, never over them.

Chicken. Not vegetarian — contains chicken.

Ingredients

• 6 large floury potatoes
• 80 g butter
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 300 ml chicken or vegetable stock
• 4 cloves garlic, unpeeled
• a few thyme sprigs
• salt and pepper

Method

1. THE STOCK COMES TO EXACTLY HALF THEIR DEPTH AND NEVER OVER THEM. That line is the dish. Below it the potato braises and goes to the texture the name promises; above it the cut face stays dry, in contact with the hot pan and the butter, and keeps the crust you built. Covered with stock, both faces boil and you have made very good boiled potatoes.
2. SO THEY ARE BROWNED FIRST AND THE BROWNED FACE IS KEPT DOWN. Cut side down in foaming butter until it is deep gold, and then it stays there for the whole braise. Turning them halfway through gives two mediocre faces instead of one good one.
3. THEY ARE CUT INTO CYLINDERS OF EQUAL HEIGHT, which is not vanity. Uneven heights mean the stock line is halfway up one and over the top of another. A cutter, or square them off with a knife.
4. FLOURY POTATOES, NOT WAXY. The inside is meant to collapse to something nearly creamy while the face holds; a waxy potato stays firm all through and the contrast never happens.
5. AND THE BUTTER MUST NOT BURN in the first stage, which is why there is oil with it. Butter alone at the heat needed to brown a potato is black in four minutes.
6. Potatoes peeled and cut into cylinders about 4 cm tall, all the same height. The trimmings kept for soup.
7. Rinsed and PATTED COMPLETELY DRY.
8. Oil and half the butter in a heavy ovenproof pan over a medium-high heat until foaming.
9. The cylinders stood cut side down, not touching, and left ALONE 6 to 8 minutes until deep gold. Checked by lifting one.
10. Seasoned. The garlic cloves and thyme tucked around them.
11. The remaining butter added, and the stock poured carefully down the side of the pan to come EXACTLY HALFWAY up the potatoes. No further.
12. Brought to a simmer, then into a 200C oven, UNCOVERED, for 30 to 35 minutes.
13. Done when a skewer meets no resistance and the stock has reduced to a buttery glaze in the base.
14. Lifted out browned face UP, and the glaze from the pan spooned over. Served at once.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under France · All recipes