French Provincial Cooking (48 page)

Line an 8-inch pie tin with crumbly pastry, as for the
tarte
au
fromage,
p. 206. Chop the white part of 2 lb. of leeks and let them melt in butter. Add 2 oz. of lean ham cut into dice. Spread this mixture on the pastry.

Beat together 3 egg yolks and
pint of cream; season with salt and pepper. Pour this mixture over the leeks, put a few small pieces of butter on the top, and cook in a medium hot oven for 30 to 40 minutes.

Under the name of
flamiche
or
flamique
a very similar dish is made in Picardy and other parts of northern France, but does not usually include the ham, more leeks (3 lb.) and less cream (
pint) being used for the filling. Sometimes a bread dough or yeast pastry is used (in this case, reduce the amount of filling by one third, to allow for the rising of the pastry) and sometimes the
flamiche
is covered over with a lid of pastry so that it becomes more like a pasty.

These are a cross, as it were, of semolina and potato gnocchi, the final cooking being more like that of potato croquettes. It is rather a good combination, lighter in texture than either kind of gnocchi, and quite easy to make.

First prepare a purée from 1 lb. of potatoes, boiled in their skins, then peeled, and mashed while still warm. Season them liberally, adding grated nutmeg as well as salt and pepper. Add, a little at a time,
pint of milk. When this purée is amalgamated put it in a saucepan and, stirring all the time, bring just to simmering point. Pour in 3 oz. of fine semolina, and stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture is very stiff and coming away from the sides of the pan. Remove from the fire and stir in 2 whole well-beaten eggs. Have ready a buttered tin, pour in the mixture in a layer nearly an inch thick. Leave until next day.

For the final cooking, cut squares of the mixture, roll these in your floured hands into little croquette shapes. Fry them in a mixture of oil and butter until they are firm and golden. They can be served dry, as a first course, or as an accompaniment to meat, or they can be put in a fireproof dish with melted butter and grated cheese and left in the oven until the cheese has melted.

Although it is not traditional, a little grated Gruyère or Parmesan, about an ounce, added to the original mixture at the same time as the eggs, is an improvement. And since the frying of this quantity of croquettes is heavy on butter and rather tricky to do all at one time, they can be cooked and served like Italian potato gnocchi. That is, instead of forming the mixture into croquettes, roll them lightly into small round or cork shapes. Drop them into very gently boiling salted water, and take them out with a perforated spoon when they float to the top, which takes 3 or 4 minutes. Put them in a buttered gratin dish, sprinkle with grated cheese and a little more butter and leave in a moderate oven for a few minutes. They are very light done like this.

The French have invented dozens of excellent potato dishes, but many of them turn out less successfully here than in France because we can rarely get the right varieties of kidney or waxy potatoes. Here is one which is suitable to English potatoes. It is a purely local country dish which I came across at Entraygues, a little town on the confluence of two rivers, the Lot and the Truyère, in south-western France. It was described to me by a very ancient lady in the shop where I was buying local cooking pots, and the proprietress of the hotel where we were staying obligingly cooked it for us.

2 lb. floury potatoes, 10 oz. cheese, 2 oz. butter, 4-5 oz. cream, salt, garlic.

The cheese used for this dish is the soft white unfermented
tomme de Cantal
(not to be confused with Cantal proper, which somewhat resembles English cheeses in consistency) but I find that Caerphilly, a mild cheese which melts easily, serves the purpose very well. A mild and unmatured Lancashire would also be suitable but, being stronger flavoured, 2 oz. less would be sufficient.

Cook the potatoes in their skins, peel and sieve them to a dry purée, and add seasoning. Heat the butter and cream in a heavy pan, put in the purée, stir until hot and amalgamated, add a very little crushed garlic, then the cheese, cut into small squares, all at once, and stir until it is all melted and quite smooth. Serve quickly before the mixture starts getting grainy.

As will be perceived from the list of ingredients, this is scarcely a light dish. It was served to us quite on its own, as a first course, but I think myself a few small slices of bread fried in butter provide a good accompaniment—something crisp to contrast with the softness of the potatoes.

If there is some left over, it makes most excellent potato cakes. Simply form the mixture into small flat cakes, roll them lightly in flour and fry them gently to a light golden colour.

Dauphine
and
dauphinois
, similar though they sound, are two very different preparations of potatoes, both most excellent in their ways.
pommes dauphine
(the recipe is on page 273) make an ideal accompaniment to steaks and small roasts, for those who are not daunted by last-minute deep frying.
Gratin dauphinois
is a rich and filling regional dish from the Dauphiné. Some recipes, Escoffier’s and Austin de Croze’s among them, include cheese and eggs, making it very similar to a
gratin savoyard:
but other regional authorities declare that the authentic
gratin dauphinois
is made only with potatoes and thick fresh cream. I give the second version which is, I think, the better one; it is also the easier. And if it seems to the thrifty-minded outrageously extravagant to use half a pint of cream to one pound of potatoes, I can only say that to me it seems a more satisfactory way of enjoying cream than pouring it over tinned peaches or chocolate mousse.

Peel 1 lb. of yellow potatoes, and slice them in even rounds no thicker than a penny; this operation is very easy with the aid of the mandoline (see page 64). Rinse them thoroughly in cold water—this is most important—then shake them dry in a cloth. Put them in layers in a shallow
earthenware
dish which has been rubbed with garlic and well buttered. Season with pepper and salt. Pour
pint of thick cream over them; strew with little pieces of butter; cook them for 1
hours in a low oven, Gas No. 2, 310 deg. F. During the last 10 minutes turn the oven up fairly high to get a fine golden crust on the potatoes. Serve in the dish in which they have cooked; it is not easy to say how many people this will serve; two, or three, or four, according to their capacity, and what there is to follow.

Much depends also upon the quality of the potatoes used. Firm waxy varieties such as the kipfler and the fir-apple pink
¹⁸
which appear occasionally on the London market make a gratin lighter and also more authentic than that made with routine commercial King Edwards or Majestics which are in every respect second best.

Two more points concerning the proportions of a
gratin dauphinois:
as the quantity of potatoes is increased the proportion of cream may be slightly diminished. Thus, for 31b. of potatoes, 1
pints of cream will be amply sufficient; and the choice of cooking dish (for the appropriate shape see the
tian
, Fig. 2, page 61). is also important, for the potatoes and cream should, always, fill the dish to within approximately three quarters of an inch of the top.

The best way, in my view, of appreciating the charm of a
gratin dauphinois
is to present the dish entirely on its own, as a first course to precede grilled or plain roast meat or poultry, or a cold joint to be eaten with a simple green salad.