Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 2 (168 page)

Pommes Anna
looks like a brown cake 6 to 8 inches in diameter and 2 inches high, and it smells marvelously of potatoes and butter. That, in effect, is all it is: thinly sliced potatoes packed in layers in a heavy pan, bathed in clarified butter, and baked in a very hot oven so that the outside crusts enough for the potatoes to be unmolded without collapsing. The contrast of crusty exterior and tender, buttery interior is quite unlike anything else in potato cookery, and to many
pommes Anna
is the supreme potato recipe of all time. It was created during the era of Napoleon III and named, as were many culinary triumphs in those days, after one of the
grandes cocottes
of the period. Whether it was an Anna Deslions, an Anna Judic, or simply Anna Untel, she has also immortalized the special double baking dish itself,
la cocotte à pommes Anna,
which is still being made and which you can still buy at a fancy price. It is of heavy copper.

A thick, flameproof baking dish of some sort is actually one of the keys to
pommes Anna
, because it must be an excellent heat conductor. Although the copper
cocotte Anna
is a beautiful object, its absolutely vertical sides, 3-inch depth, and frequent tendency to sticky-bottom troubles make it less easy to use than other possibilities.

The familiar American cast-iron frying pan with its fairly vertical sides and short, straight handle is actually the best of all for
pommes Anna.
The potatoes are easier to unmold from this than from the French type of iron frying pan with its sloping sides and long handle. However, either will do, as will a thick, flameproof, ceramic baking dish or a thick cast-aluminum one with no-stick interior. The essential is to have a material that will get thoroughly hot all over, to brown and crust the outside of the potatoes.

Having furnished yourself with the right pan, you then want to make sure the potato slices will not stick to it, because you must be able to unmold them at the end of the cooking. Therefore, use clarified butter, dry the potatoes thoroughly before the cooking begins, and finish the cooking once you have begun it, or else the potatoes will exude moisture and stick to the pan. As you will note in the recipe, cooking begins at once, on the top of the stove as you are arranging the potatoes in the pan; this is to dry the bottom layers and start the brown crust forming. In the classic recipe you then finish the cooking in a hot oven, which usually gives a more professional result, but you may complete the cooking on top of the stove, as suggested in the cheese variation following the Master Recipe.

Pommes Anna
and its variations go especially well with roast saddle of lamb, leg of lamb, roast beef, chops, sautéed chicken, plain or fancy steaks, and roast game.

  
POMMES ANNA

[Mold of Sliced Potatoes Baked in Butter]

Your object, in arranging the sliced potatoes in their dish for this very special recipe, is not only to fill the dish but to make a reasonably neat design in the bottom and around the sides so that when the potatoes are unmolded they will present a handsome exterior. For the sides you may either arrange an edging of overlapping upright slices braced by horizontal interior layers, or build up a wall of evenly spaced horizontal slices as you fill the pan. We have suggested the latter, simpler, system here.

For about 8 cups of sliced potatoes, serving 6 people

1)
Preliminaries

½ lb. (2 sticks) butter

3 lbs. “boiling” potatoes (more if needed)

Paper towels

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Set one rack in very bottom level, and another just above it. Clarify the butter: melt it, skim off scum, and spoon the clear liquid butter off the milky residue. Peel the potatoes, trim into cylinders about 1¼ inches in diameter so
that you will have uniform slices, then slice cylinders into even rounds ⅛ inch thick. You should have about 8 cups. Dry thoroughly in paper towels. (Do not wash potatoes after peeling, because you want the starch to remain in, so potatoes will mass more easily into a cake.)

2)
Arranging the potatoes in the dish

A heavy cast-iron frying pan about 8 inches top diameter and 2 to 2½ inches deep, or one of the other possibilities in paragraphs preceding recipe

Salt and pepper

Pour ¼ inch of the clarified butter into the pan and set over moderate heat. When hot, start rapidly arranging the first layer of potatoes in the bottom of the pan as follows.