Why Boulangère Potatoes Are The Best!
This French potato dish is famous amongst chefs, but not so famous amongst home cooks,
and I don’t know why. I think its tastier than dauphinoise potato, its cooked with chicken stock, so it has a deep savoury, french home cooking style flavour. It reminds me of my grandmas cooking.
But, the best thing, this recipe I’ll show you today uses very little fat, so I can enjoy this indulgent potato dish with not even a shred of the guilt I get with eating dauphinoise.
I’ll also show you how I get them cooked evenly, so you can apply these skills to your potato gratin, dauphinoise, scalloped potatoes or pom anna. And any other recipe that uses layered, thinly sliced potatoes.
Why Boulangère Potatoes Are The Best!
In this blog post I’ll share with you why I prefer this Boulangère Potato recipe over a Dauphinoise, Gratin or even a Pom Anna.
Boulangère Potatoes have so much depth in flavour and richness, even though they only use a few simple, inexpensive ingredients. For me, they are one of the staples of great classical French cuisine.
Ingredients
- 1.2kg / 2.6lbs potatoess
- 2 white onions
- 25g / 1oz butter
- A shot of water
- 1000ml / roughly 4 cups of chciken stock
- A handful of thyme
- Salt & Pepper
Instructions
- Slice onions in half, peel, save the trim for later, then slice thinly not too thin though.
- Add to a frying pan, a knob of butter, the onions, a good amount of salt and a shot of water. This shot of water is a key ingredient to speed up the caramelisation process of the onions.
- Cook in frying pan over a high heat for a few minutes to get them started, then reduce the heat and continue to cook (see video)
- Next, grab a saucepan, add 1 litre of water, 2 chicken stock cubes and all the onion trim for earlier and add the thyme stalks to the saucepan as well.
- Peel the potatoes, then slice them on a mandolin, I go for around the width of a poker chip. (see video)
- Once the onions are ready, remove half the onions and set aside, spread the rest out so they cover the base.
- Add a little stock, this will steam the potatoes form underneath and help them to cook evenly.
- 1st layer of potatoes, thyme, salt, a little pepper, stock.
- 2nd layer potatoes thyme salt pepper.
- 3rd layer potatoes this will have the other half of the onions thyme salt pepper
- 4th layer potatoes thyme salt pepper
- 5th and final layer, this is the layer to make pretty, so I’m taking a little extra time to tuck in the slices, and make it look nice, give it a press, some stock should rise to the surface, then i’m adding a bit more.
- Into the oven at 160-170c, no higher than 180c other wise top will be cooked before the centre.
- Every 15 - 30 minutes press the potatoes and rotate the pan to get them to cook evenly. They'll be ready after around 1 hour, you can check this by piercing a knife into the middle, if theres no resistance they are ready.