Day 39: Potatoes, Potatoes and More Potatoes

Chef has declared this potato day. All recipes consist of the main ingredient ~ potato. We made four dishes today ~ scalloped potatoes, gnocchi, Pomme William, and Anna potatoes.

Since we are working on four recipes, time management is key. First off Chef has us boiling three potatoes in salted water ~ two for Pomme William and one for gnocchi. While the potatoes are cooking away, we peel and slice two potatoes for the scalloped potatoes dish.

Scalloped potatoes are layers of thinly sliced potato and onion covered with a béchamel sauce, baked in a casserole dish in the oven at about 400 F. For the scalloped potatoes made today, we sweat the onions in a pan. Between each layer of onion and potato, I season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. To make the béchamel sauce, milk is heated and infused with a two cloves and a bay leaf. To the milk I add a blond roux (butter and flour), stirring it until it thickens slightly. The béchamel sauce is poured over the layered potato and onion and put in the oven to cook.

When the boiled potatoes are ready, they are peeled and riced. With the one potato that has been riced we make our gnocchi by adding one egg and season with salt, pepper and and nutmeg and mix it all together adding flour until we get a light dough. The dough is rolled out in to long ropes and cut in to one inch lengths. With the back of a fork, each piece is lightly rolled to form rough looking shell. The gnocchi is placed in boiling water. When it floats to the to the top of the water it is ready to be served with some sauce or pan fried until it becomes lightly browned. We choose to pan fry the gnocchi in some oil and after browning toss with chopped parsley and plate for Chef.

Working with two riced potatoes we make a classic french dish called Pomme William. The rice potatoes are mixed with an egg and seasoned with salt, pepper and nutmeg. With the potato mixture I moulded a portion of it to the shape of a large pear, a small pear and an orange and dipped them in an egg mixture and then coat with panko crumbs. At this point they are ready for the deep fryer at 375 F. The Pomme William is cooked for a few minutes ~ enough to brown ~ and removed from the oil and seasoned with salt.

Our last potato dish is Anna potatoes. This a fairly easy dish to prepare and cook. With a potato we make paper thin slices and layer the slices in frying pay by overlapping them while forming a circle. Each layer is seasoned with salt and pepper and clarified butter ~ two or three layers is fine. The potatoes are cook on the stove until the bottom becomes browned and then put the oven to finish cooking. Before plating and serving the potatoes, the pan is placed in the salamander (broiler) to brown the top of the Anna potatoes.

Chef wants us to work on our project tonight ~ it's due in a couple of weeks.