110. Sauteed Potato Balls (p. 565)

The Book contains several recipes for elevating the pedestrian potato to something impressive. The Parsley Leaf Potatoes are one example, this recipe is another.

There really isn't much to this recipe. Just take a couple of russett potatoes, peel them, and, with a melon baller, scoop out as many balls from the potatoes as you can. As you scoop out each ball, plop it in some cold water to keep them from turning brown as you work. Once you're done, par-boil the potato balls. (I also turned the Swiss-cheese-looking scraps into mashed potatoes that I stashed in the fridge for another day. Waste not, want not!) To sautee the potatoes, melt some butter in a skillet, add the potatoes and cook until they are crispy and browned, shaking the skillet back and forth frequently to keep them moving.

I served these potatoes with my Fish en Papillote. It was a nice pairing. The potatoes were crispy and buttery on the outside and soft and creamy on the inside. They were pretty, too, I guess. I was kind of hoping for perfect little potato spheres, but, either my melon baller isn't sharp enough or the potatoes I used were too hard. I could only manage to get the potato balls to be somewhat spherical. This recipe is somewhat similar to a potato preparation in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but Julia Child would have you whittle baby potatoes into little ovals: a lot of work. The melon baller makes for much easier preparation. The other nice thing about this reciepe is that you can do some of the work in advance. You can cut out the balls and par-boil them a day in advance, and sautee them right before serving.

Date Cooked: February 14, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: B+