Pommes boulangère
Savoury dish
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pommes boulangère or pommes à la boulangère – "baker's potatoes"[n 1] – is a savoury dish of sliced potato and onion, cooked slowly in liquid in an oven.
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Pommes boulangère | |
| Alternative names | Pommes à la boulangère |
|---|---|
| Place of origin | France |
| Main ingredients | Potatoes, onion and cooking liquid |
Background
The name of the dish is said to derive from an old practice in French villages, where householders without their own ovens would take the prepared dish to the village bakery. After the baker had finished making his bread, the potato dish would cook slowly while the oven gradually died down.[2]
Ingredients and variations
The basic ingredients are potatoes, onions and cooking liquid. The dish, cooked slowly in a low oven, gradually absorbing the cooking liquid, has a crisp top layer of sliced potatoes, with a softer mixture of onion and potato beneath. It is usual to season it with some or all of garlic, herbs (particularly rosemary or sage), salt and pepper, and to top the dish with dabs of butter before cooking, but there are several published variations:
| Cook/writer | Cooking liquid | Additions | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| James Beard | unspecified bouillon | [3] | |
| Heston Blumenthal | lamb stock and white wine | [4] | |
| Paul Bocuse | water | tomatoes | [5] |
| Daniel Boulud | chicken stock | [6] | |
| Angela Hartnett | chicken stock | [7] | |
| Jean-Christophe Novelli | chicken or vegetable stock | blanched cabbage in the layers, Red Leicester cheese to top |
[8] |
| Jamie Oliver | vegetable stock | Parmesan cheese to top | [9] |
| Jacques Pépin | chicken stock | [10] | |
| Gordon Ramsay | chicken stock | [11] | |
| Michel Roux, Jr. | chicken stock | [12] | |
| Guy Savoy | chicken stock and white wine | [13] | |
| Delia Smith | vegetable stock | [14] | |
| Patricia Wells | white wine and chicken stock | leeks | [15] |
Despite the French name, the dish is not unique to France. The Yorkshire-born chef Brian Turner recalled in his memoirs (2000) being given an identical potato dish in his childhood,[16] and Bobby Freeman in a 1997 book about Welsh cuisine gives a recipe for traditional Teisen nionod (onion cake), which she describes as "the same dish as the French pommes boulangère".[17]
When diced bacon is added to the potatoes and onions, and the dish is topped with grated cheese before baking, it is known as pommes savoyarde (or alternatively as pommes Chambéry).[18]