Page 205 - YC Cooking School

Test for oven readiness
This dish relies on the starch in the potatoes to thicken the sauce. Some potatoes release

their starch more quickly than others, so keep an eye on the mixture and stir it regularly to
prevent the potatoes from sticking to the bottom of your pot. You’ll know the mixture is
ready to put in the oven when the sliced potatoes become a little bendy, and when the
sauce has thickened up quite a bit.

6 top tips for pommes purée

Small chunks work best
The smaller you cut the potatoes, the quicker they’ll cook.

For mash, less starch is best
For mashed potato, it’s important to remove as much starch as possible (this is different
from a gratin, where starch is your friend). To do this, rinse the potatoes after you’ve peeled
them, cut them up into small-sized blocks and cook them in water. It’s also important to
strain them afterwards so the starch that’s released into the water is removed.

Cook your potatoes
Start by putting your potatoes into a pot of cold water and then bringing it to the boil. This is
important because if you add your potatoes to rapidly boiling water, they’ll cook unevenly
so that the outside becomes mushy while the inside stays raw.

Test for doneness
Keep an eye on your potatoes as they cook in the boiling water. Test them from time to time
by piercing them with a knife. When the potato chunks slide easily off the knife, it’s time to
remove the lid from the pot slightly and let them boil gently for another 10 minutes. They’re
ready to mash when they look a little frayed at the edges.

Arm yourself with a whisk and a potato masher
Surprisingly, you’ll need just two tools - a whisk and a potato masher - to do this job well.
The whisk is important because it will help you to fluff up the potato mixture while you
mash it. Wait until the mash is quite soft before you introduce the whisk, otherwise you
won’t get very far.

Fluff up your mash by adding milk
Add milk very gradually at the end of the mashing process to fluff your mash up. Adding too
much milk will make your mash floppy and there won’t be all that much you can do to
rescue it, so go easy on this step.

5 top tips for pommes frite

Cut your pieces 1cm thick

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