We’ve been talking about big festive winter dinners, and although some sort of roast is likely to take center stage, we can also whip up so pretty impressive side dishes. And Chef Jerry Pellegrino likes to take a simple ingredient like our Maryland potato and dress it up a bit.
Something Al remembers from his childhood was his mother’s scalloped potatoes.
Technically she was making a gratinée since she used cheese and not just a simple cream sauce.
But what made her dish stand out was that she added thin slices of ham between the layers of potatoes, and that was a treat.
As Jerry noted, both ideas are a simple casserole of potatoes. For starters, I’d use the simple russet potato or Yukon gold because they are nice and starchy and hold their shape well. First, peel about 3 pounds of potatoes and slice them up. If you own a mandolin, this is the perfect time to use it, since it will give you nice uniform slices. You’ll also want to slice up about half a large white onion. Working with a baking dish, layer up the potatoes and the onion, seasoning each layer with a little salt and white pepper and sprinkling a little all-purpose flour on each layer.
Next, in a saucepan, warm up two cups of half and half. When warm, pour it over the potatoes and fill it to the level of the top layer. Dot it with butter cubes and bake in a 375° oven.
To make a potato au gratin, you do the first steps, but then instead of warm cream, you use butter and flour to make Bechamel sauce. Add some grated cheddar cheese and pour all that over the layers of potatoes. Cook until it’s golden brown.
And for the Patsy Spoler version, just add slices of cooked ham. Now, for something Al’s mother never made, we have Duchess Potatoes, one of the fanciest ideas I know about.
And they are fancy: little rosettes of piped mashed potatoes baked individually. And the trick is learning how to work with a pastry bag and a little metal “star” tip. You start by making ordinary mashed potatoes, but then you add some eggs and seasonings like nutmeg and paprika. One tip is not to let it get too wet, or the potatoes won’t rise up properly. Then you spoon your mash into the pastry bag, screw on the tip and start squeezing, although I would put wax paper on a cookie sheet to do this. And the thing about piping is: if you don’t get it right at first, just scrape everything off, put it back in the bag and try again. All you really want to do is squeeze in a spiral motion and build up a little peak. To finish it, I like to brush on some melted butter. Then you bake away in a moderate oven, and bang, you’ll amaze your dinner guests.
One very cool potato recipe is something called “Hasselback Potatoes”. These are sort of a rare recipe, you may not see it very often, but certainly fun to do. This is simply a russet potato that you cut almost all the way down to the bottom every ¼ inch or so. The result is a sort of fanning out of the potato with lots of nice little slots you can fill. Some recipes say just brush butter on the potatoes and bake them up. But you can make up your own more elaborate stuffing. Work with things like grated parmesan cheese, breadcrumbs, finely chopped herbs or nuts. Just brush the mixture over the potato and allow the brush to work the filling into the cuts between slices. Then bake at 425° for an hour and 15 minutes.
