Fondant Potatoes - Crusty Potatoes Roasted with Butter and Stock

hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with fondant potatoes that's right if your grandfather was a european aristocrat this may have been one of his favorite potato side dishes so basically what i'm trying to say is this is a very old-school recipe much more popular in england in europe probably because it has more than one step americans have never really embraced it but i really do think it's a cool recipe and you can never have enough potato recipes okay so here's what we're gonna do we're going to take some russet potatoes you have to use the russet that's just the texture that works best here try to get them as uniformly shaped as possible because what we're going for is perfect cylinders all right we're going to cut off both ends because the next step after we cut the ends off is to turn it up on its side and slice down with your knife peeling it and giving it some cool edges all right so you could just peel this but this is the traditional method and of course the potatoes are going to vary slightly so as you're doing this step you're going to try to get them approximately all the same thickness when you get down at the bottom just feel free to clean it up like that and then once those repealed you're going to turn those on their side and we're going to cut them in half as even as you can all right that's pretty good close enough for youtube we're going to throw those in a bowl of cold water and let them sit for about five minutes just to remove some of the starch from the outside at which point we'll transfer those out to a paper towel to Pat them dry alright we don't want any water on the surface when these go in the pan and once our potatoes are completely dry we're going to go over to a heavy bottomed skillet I'm using a cast iron one I'm gonna set that over high heat I'm going to put in a couple tablespoons of grapeseed oil or some other high smoke point oil canola would work I think you'd be ok with any vegetable oil when the oil is very hot shimmering we're gonna add our potatoes you want to put your best looking side down it doesn't really matter but if one side is a little flatter and better-looking that another put that side down first at that point you can lower your heat to medium-high and we're just gonna let those sit in there for about five or six minutes until they Brown very nicely while you're waiting you can generously salt and pepper those and I don't know exactly how long my first I took to brown I don't time this kind of stuff I just go by eye and we're not talking barely golden we're talking fairly well browned all right so be patient so that wasn't ready yet so I let him go another couple minutes and that's more like it so when there look like that you can go ahead and flip those over and at that point that vegetable oil has served its purpose I'm going to take a paper towel and absorb that oil because we're going to replace it with butter that's right always an upgrade so we're going to throw in a knob of butter with some thyme sprigs and if you're not sure what a knob of butter is you can just ask one of your British friends they know and again we're still on medium-high heat and we're going to swish that around the pan that butter is going to get infused with that time and you want a spoon and or paint with the thyme sprigs over the top and what we're looking for here is that butter foam at the top to turn from white to a light tan color it's going to take a couple minutes all right while we're waiting let's go ahead and season this side with a generous amount of salt and pepper and of course it's always a good idea to make sure your potatoes are evenly spaced and as soon as that butter foam just starts to think about turning golden I want you to dump in 1/2 a cup of chicken stock because these potatoes are going to roast in that stock to finish cooking in the oven and by the way I'll fond on potato means is potatoes that are roasted with stock or at least that's what they told me in culinary school and why would they just make that up so we're in dump in the stock and immediately place that in a preheated 425 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until your fondant potatoes look like this they're going to be very very tender and creamy inside and of course the edges will be browned and crusty the bottom gets nice and sticky from the stock which imparts a little bit of extra richness into the potato and of course if yours aren't cooked yet in your stocks gone and you're worrying about the bottom burning just add another splash and let it cook a little longer all right that's you cooking I just get you close you got to figure out the rest and then to finish of course we're going to transfer this onto some kind of serving platter if I was you I would totally spoon over a little bit of that time butter and because I have a garden I'm going to put some blossom meantime flowers around I like my food pretty and then please do as I say not as I am about to do right now to really appreciate these you have to let them cool down a little bit this is way too hot to bite into but I'm going to do it anyway I got a video to shoot and if you've never had these before you're going to be amazed at that texture so dense and moist and rich just really really cool of course you have that butter and thyme that's always a good thing when you're talking potatoes and of course the real magic is that contrast between those crusty edges let's just listen for a little bit oh yeah so it's those crusty edges contrasted with that creamy moist center it really is a tremendous potato technique and of course I've always wished there wasn't a dish already called scalloped potatoes because I would call this scalloped potatoes because it looks like a giant scallop but because there is we can't do it it would be too confusing hey I'll do the scalloped potato not the scalloped potatoes so obviously that wouldn't work there'd be like a whole scene so we call them fond on potatoes it's a fine name all right so I really hope you give that a try head over to food wishes comm for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy

Channel: Food Wishes

Views: 6,545,329

Rating: 4.8818526 out of 5

Keywords: Fondant, Potatoes, potato, Roasted, Butter, Roasting (Culinary Technique), Food, Cooking, Eating, Stock (Ingredient), Kitchen, Recipe, Chef, john, foodwishes, side dish, startch, Restaurant, Recipes

Id: XOatJPocjDo

Length: 5min 20sec (320 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 18 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/SaltMarshGoblin]

Oh, my goodness, I try to limit my nightshades to keep my arthritis and my psoriasis happy, but some things just look VERY worth it!

[u/lord_vader_jr]

Man I just made these😂

[u/blondrizzl]

They would say I ordered the scalloped potatoes not the scalloped potatoes, it would be like a whole scene,

[u/glubtier]

My favorite part was the potato ASMR.

[u/redheadedfury]

thank you for recognizing nightshade allergies!!!!

i miss potatoes :(

[u/FrankieSaints]

That guy's voice lol, not sure if I should be enthused or annoyed.

[u/telpetin]

Why WOULD they make it up?

[u/CandidSeaCucumber]

I love how sing-song his voice is!

[u/stonedgirlthrowaway]

I’ve followed this mans recipe of this before! I like to pair this with a crab or salmon cake shaped like squares instead of circles and arugula salad. It makes the plate look cool cause the different shapes and heights of the components are all wonky.