After having an utterly divine dining experience at
Per Se for my 35th birthday, I was inspired to try Thomas Keller's Potato Pave recipe for Thanksgiving.
Martha Stewart not only has the recipe posted (also in his new recipe book
Ad Hoc at Home); she also has a video clip of him making the dish. Love that!
So I decided to go all out and make this dish for Thanksgiving. It's not a simple dish, but it was easy enough, even for a novice (which I consider myself). You just have to have enough patience for all the various steps involved. You also should start on it the day before you plan on eating it. It is time consuming.
Since I don't cook all that often, I didn't have a few of the necessary tools on hand. One of the keys to preparing this dish is slicing the potatoes into very thin, even, perfectly-shaped rectangular slices. The problem for me was that I don't own a
mandoline slicer. So instead, I sharpened a knife and got to work.
Although mine weren't perfectly rectangular, I made them work. The bowl above is the leftover scraps of potatoes.
In the video, Martha Stewart asks Keller what he does with the scraps. At the time I didn't really understand why she was asking, but given how much I had leftover, I made mashed potatoes with them. Really, really good mashed potatoes! But we're saving those for after Thanksgiving!
The key to the great flavor of the Pave (translated as brick) is the heavy cream, salt and pepper that you soak the potatoes in beforehand. The bowl on the left has the soaking slices. On the right, is the casserole dish I baked them in. You're supposed to line it with parchment paper and all I had were triangles for icing(!) so I made due. You line up the potatoes in between layers of unsalted butter, salt and pepper, as you can see above. I loved the fresh, organic sea salt I used. Very good!
This recipe also calls for weighing down the potatoes after it's been baked. Martha recommends using canned goods. This packs the layers in tightly.
As you can see, I keep the laptop in the kitchen when cooking as well and follow along my recipes that way. It also provides me a bit of background music while I work.
Once the dish has been weighted, it needs to be refrigerated for at least 6 hours. From there you unwrap, cut off the sides for a nice even edge, and cut into 12 even pieces. Fry it up in some canola oil, thyme and cracked garlic still in its skin.
Finally, when it's done, you garnish with fresh chopped chives and more butter! This dish takes a lot of salt and butter, but it pays off.
If you're a foodie or you just love any and all forms of potatoes, I would absolutely recommend trying this dish.
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