Mandoline and Potatoes

[Suvir Saran]

What should I make?

Ideas??

[Fat Guy]

Gaufrettes!

[Johnathon]

I just made a New Brunswick Potato Cake for a family dinner using a mandoline. The dish turned out superbly! If you would like the recipe I can PM it to you.

[Jinmyo]

Pomme Anna.

Or Pomme Maxim. On a silpat or parchment paper on a baking tray, place thinly sliced potatoes lacquered with clarified butter. Crunchy salt and black pepper. Medium high oven, until golden brown.

Or just gently simmer in cream, white wine, and butter, with salt and white pepper. Tarragon added at the end, some garlic crouton.

Have with wilted greens and some kind of protein.

Just be careful of potato cruft and starch building up on the mandoline blade, making it dangerous.

[Suvir Saran]

Gaufrettes!

Wonder where you learned that French word from.

[Suvir Saran]

I just made a New Brunswick Potato Cake for a family dinner using a mandoline. The dish turned out superbly! If you would like the recipe I can PM it to you.

I would love the recipe Johnathon.

Also could you share your experience as you made that recipe with all of us here? That is always the most fun part about a recipe.. hearing what someone else went through as they followed it.

[Suvir Saran]

Or Pomme Maxim. On a silpat or parchment paper on a baking tray, place thinly sliced potatoes lacquered with clarified butter. Crunchy salt and black pepper. Medium high oven, until golden brown.

I know you are not one that needs recipes... But can I trouble you for a moment.. please...

How would you lacquer the sliced potatoes? Both sides? Using a brush? greasing the silpat and parchment? Or is that not necessary? Would you grease only the top?

Is medium high 350?F or 375?F or lower?

Sorry for all these questions Jinmyo.

[vengroff]

Must it be strictly a potato dish, or can in be part of something more? If the latter, paper-thin potato slices can be applied to salmon or other thick fish filets. Saute to form a crispy crust. Salt, pepper, and optionally thyme, dill, or other herbs can be sprinkled between the fish and potatoes as you see fit.

[Johnathon]

I just made a New Brunswick Potato Cake for a family dinner using a mandoline. The dish turned out superbly! If you would like the recipe I can PM it to you.

I would love the recipe Johnathon.

Also could you share your experience as you made that recipe with all of us here? That is always the most fun part about a recipe.. hearing what someone else went through as they followed it.

Not much to it actually! (I have sent the recipe to you directly, check your PM)

You must remember that I was the only "chef" dealing with a dinner for ten and spent two days prepping and precooking what I could so the cooking experience was a blur of knives, mandoline, flour, pastry and a very messy kitchen! Not to mention a few glasses of great wine to add to a wonderful couple of days of cooking.

The only things I would add are to slice the potatoes quite thin (1/16") and layer them evenly in the pastry crust. The other thing is to use a very good quality goat cheese and definitely fresh rosemary.

Enjoy!

[Malawry]

For the pommes maxime, just dunk the wafer-thin slices of potato in melted clarified butter before putting them on the Silpatted sheet pan as Jinmyo suggested. Mm mm good.

[Suvir Saran]

Must it be strictly a potato dish, or can in be part of something more?  If the latter, paper-thin potato slices can be applied to salmon or other thick fish filets.  Saute to form a crispy crust.  Salt, pepper, and optionally thyme, dill, or other herbs can be sprinkled between the fish and potatoes as you see fit.

Tell me more.. sounds wonderful.

[Suvir Saran]

For the pommes maxime, just dunk the wafer-thin slices of potato in melted clarified butter before putting them on the Silpatted sheet pan as Jinmyo suggested. Mm mm good.

Oh my, mighty generous with fat.

Sound great though. Thanks!

[Fish]

I made a dish loosely based on the Pommes Anna recipe in French Laundry cookbook (the recipe in the book is delicious, but I didn't have the time).

Basically: Thinly slice potatoes, arrange overlapping slices in a non-stick pan brushed with clarified butter, Every few layers I added some kosher salt and pepper and a chopped fresh herb (I did a layer each of chives, rosemary and thyme). Add some more clarified butter on top, cook on top of the stove until bubbling, then bake for around 30 mins at 450. Very, very tasty.

- S

[Suzanne F]

Suvir, could you give us a little more information? Is it a fancy French mandoline, or one of those little plastic Japanese jobbies? That makes a BIG difference in how you prepare it. The Japanese ones are better served raw, as the plastic tends to melt when cooked; the French take to heat better, but you have to watch out for all those little knobs and levers when you serve them. Of course, you could always present it whole, bone it in the kitchen and then serve it already filleted.

[Suvir Saran]

Suvir, could you give us a little more information?  Is it a fancy French mandoline, or one of those little plastic Japanese jobbies?  That makes a BIG difference in how you prepare it.  The Japanese ones are better served raw, as the plastic tends to melt when cooked; the French take to heat better, but you have to watch out for all those little knobs and levers when you serve them.  Of course, you could always present it whole, bone it in the kitchen and then serve it already filleted.

[Anna N]

Garlic mashed potatoes with the "finger-savers" - that's what I call the bits I don't attempt to slice lest they end up with unintentional protein in them!

[vengroff]

... paper-thin potato slices can be applied to salmon or other thick fish filets.

Tell me more.. sounds wonderful.

I haven't made this dish in a while, but you inspired me to do so tonite. It's more a technique than a recipe, as I do it a bit differently each time, but I'll try to present it in recipe form, based on what I did tonight. The thing I really like about this is that both the skin on the bottom and the potato crust on top of the fish are a crispy and crackling and the fish in between in moist, tender, and full of flavor.

I'll see if I can get some photos into the thread; bear with me if they don't show up, this is my first attempt to put photos from ofoto.com on eGullet. (Note: so far, in preview mode, the ofoto.com images all just say "IMAGE NOT AVAILABLE DUE TO MAINTENANCE try back later." Hopefully this is just a temporary problem, as the URL to the photos looks to be correct.)

Potato-Crusted Salmon Filet with Dijon Sauce

Quantities are for two servings.

For the salmon:

3/4 pound Alaskan Coho filet

1/2 teaspoon frashly ground white pepper

1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste

2 sprigs lemon thyme, leaves stripped from stems

1 medium size russet potato

2 cloves garlic

2 tablespoons olive oil

For the sauce:

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon flour

1 cup milk

3 teaspoons dijon mustard

salt and white pepper to taste

Cut the salmon filet vertically into two strips, one for each serving. Remove the pin bones from the fish with a pair of needle-nose pliers, or by hand if you can get a good grip. Place the strips skin side down and season with the pepper, salt, and lemon thyme leaves, as shown:

Peel the potato, and slice as thin as possible with a mandoline. With a little careful adjustment, you should be able to produce flexible translucent slices approximately one millimeter thick. Cut the cloves of garlic in half lengthwise, score the cut surfaces with a knife, and rub the over the potato slices. This will flavor them, and help prevent them from oxidizing. Cover the surface of the salmon with a layer of the potato slices. Add a second layer, draping it from the top over the sides of the fish. Your fish should now look like this:

Before cooking the fish, start the sauce. It's really just a bechemel with some mustard added. Optionally, the sauce can be started before the fish, and kept warm over a very low flame. Begin by melting the butter in a small saucepan over a medium flame. Once it is melted and bubbling, add the flour and stir thoroughly until a uniform paste is formed. Continue cooking until the roux just starts to brown. Add a quarter of the milk, and wisk to incorporate. Repeat three more times until all the milk has been added. Lower the flame to prevent boiling. Cook, stirring a couple of times, for five minutes, then wisk in the mustard. Taste, and add salt and pepper to taste. Hold over a very low flame, stirring occasionally, while you return to the fish.

Heat a large skillet over a medium flame. Once the pan is hot, add the olive oil. It should shimmer, and begin to just barely smoke. Place the fish potato side down in the pan. This is easier said than done. The key is not to bend the fish, otherwise the potato layer will tend to peel off. I like to place the fish skin side down on the end of a wide fish spatula, then roll it over into the hot oil. Once the fish is in the pan, let it cook completely undisturbed for two minutes. In this time, the potato will develop into a crispy crust and will release itself from the pan. If you try to mover or turn the fish too early, the potato is likely to stick to the pan. Once the crust forms, carefully turn the fish over so that the skin side is down. The potato crust should be a lovely golden brown, as shown:

Continue to cook on the skin side until the skin becomes crisp and the fish is medium rare to medium. This should take about four or five minutes, depending on the thickness of the filet. A small knife tip in the side of the fish can be used to check doneness. Plate the fish potato side up, garnished with the sauce and some greens. I used quickly sauteed spinach with a little olive oil, salt and pepper. Here it is, ready to go with an Oregon Pinot Noir:

Ignore the cardboard box in the upper right corner of the photo. We are still in the process of moving in to our new place.

Here's what it looks like on the inside:

In summary, it's not really a potato dish per se, but it does use a potato and a mandoline as the topic of the thread suggested. Enjoy.

Edited December 31, 2002 by vengroff (log)

[Suvir Saran]

Many thanks for the recipe. I hope I can see those pics you took. Thanks for all your effort.

[vengroff]

You are welcome. Not a lot of extra effort really, as I got to eat the result.

I put the pictures on imagestation and they show up now, at least for me.

Edited December 31, 2002 by vengroff (log)

[Anna N]

You are welcome.  Not a lot of extra effort really, as I got to eat the result.

I put the pictures on imagestation and they show up now, at least for me.

WOW! That looks so good. Had I seen it before dinner last night, I would have attempted it. We had salmon with a herb/sun-dried tomato crust and it was, as always, delicious but a change is in order and the next time, it will be this beautiful dish that you took the trouble to post in detail on the board. So many, many thanks.

[Jinmyo]

vengroff, that's just lovely.

[Suvir Saran]

You are welcome.  Not a lot of extra effort really, as I got to eat the result.

I put the pictures on imagestation and they show up now, at least for me.

They show up for me too.

Many, many thanks.

How wonderful life is with pictures. And your great generosity. Of course, of course.

[Suvir Saran]

Matt,

Thanks for showing me how to use my mandolines. I am just getting ready to make french fries.

It made the cutting of the potatoes so quick and easy.

What I did realize though, and need your help with, is on how I need to set the mandoline to make those wonderful waffled potato chips you made the other evening. I have tried many settings.. and just seem to not remember what you did.

Can I get some help? Is it easy to learn through the web? Would I need another lesson?

Happy New Year to you and yours. And thanks for your generosity.

[Matt Seeber]

suvir,

your very welcome. it was my pleasure!

to make the gaufrette, set the waffle cut on your bron mandoline and run the potato thru it. rotate the potato 90 degrees and slide it thru the waffle cut again. look at the slice of potato that comes out. if it's thin and flimsy, adjust the blade to cut thicker and try again. if the holes are not there and the chip is too thick, adjust the blade to cut thinner and try again.

if you don't turn the potato 90 degrees after each slice, it won't be a gaufrette.

the thickness of the potato varies with the amount of pressure applied by your hand, so make sure you're consistent. it doesn't hurt to check every few chips or so to make sure they're coming out the same thickness. don't try to blow thru the whole potato quickly - it's not a race. do it slowly and methodically and you will end up with a nicer product at the end.

[Suvir Saran]

Does only the top blade need to be used?

Can I use the chariot?

I tried doing what you said... but was certainly not doing it the correct way.

I made 5 batches of French Fries, amazing.. and thanks to you and the mandoline, I made little effort.

Thanks Matt!

PS: I sprinkle chaat masala (Indian spice mix that has many sour spices and also red chile in it), cayenne and salt on the fries. They are spicy and superb that way.