Pommes boulangère or pommes à la boulangère – "baker's potatoes" – is a savoury dish of sliced potato and onion, cooked slowly in liquid in an oven.
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.
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:
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, 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".
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).
Notes, references and sources
Notes
References
Sources
- Beard, James (1974). The Best of Beard. New York: Golden Press. ISBN 0307487172.
- Blumenthal, Heston (2011). Heston Blumenthal at Home. London: Bloomsbury. OCLC 1335927951.
- Bocuse, Paul (1982). Bocuse dans votre cuisine. Paris: Flammarion. ISBN 2082000869.
- Boulud, Daniel (1999). Café Boulud Cookbook. New York: Scribner. OCLC 1193384062.
- Freeman, Bobby (1997). Traditional Food from Wales. New York: Hippocrene. OCLC 1285848394.
- Novelli, Jean-Christophe (2007). Everyday Novelli. London: Headline. ISBN 978-0755317172.
- Pépin, Jacques (2000). Jacques Pépin's Simple and Healthy Cooking. London: Hi Marketing. ISBN 0875963625.
- Ramsay, Gordon (2006). Gordon Ramsay's Sunday Lunch. London: Quadrille. ISBN 1844002802.
- Roux, Michel Jr (2013). The French Kitchen: Recipes from the Master of French Cooking. San Francisco: Weldon Owen. OCLC 1319320336.
- Saulnier, Louis (1978) [1923]. Le répertoire de la cuisine (fourteenth ed.). London: Jaeggi. OCLC 1086737491.
- Savoy, Guy (1987). Vegetable Magic. London: Ebury. OCLC 1280845785.
- Turner, Brian (2000). A Yorkshire Lad: My Life with Recipes. London: Headline. ISBN 0747273669.
- Wells, Patricia (1990). Les 200 meuilleures recettes de bistrot. Paris: Lattès. ISBN 2253063045.
