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''Pommes Anna'', or Anna potatoes, is a classic French dish of sliced, layered potatoes cooked in a very large amount of melted butter. There are several variants of the dish, containing, in addition to potatoes and butter, other ingredients, which may include artichoke hearts,
black truffles ''Tuber melanosporum'', called the black truffle, Périgord truffle or French black truffle, is a species of truffle native to Southern Europe. It is one of the most expensive edible fungi in the world. In 2013, the truffle cost between 1,000 a ...
, mushrooms and cheese.


Ingredients

The recipe calls for firm-fleshed potatoes and butter only. Potatoes are peeled and sliced very thin. The slices, salted and peppered, are layered into a pan (see below), generously doused with
clarified butter Clarified butter is butter from which all milk solids have been removed. The result is a clear, yellow butter that can be heated to higher temperatures before burning. Typically, it is produced by melting butter and allowing the components to ...
, and baked until they form a cake. Then the cake is flipped every ten minutes until the outside is golden and crisp. At the end of the cooking period, the dish is unmoulded and forms a cake in diameter and about high.Beck and Child, pp. 515–521 It is then cut in wedges and served immediately on a hot plate, usually accompanying cooked meat. A special double baking dish made of copper called ''la cocotte à pommes Anna'' is still manufactured in France for the cooking of this dish. It consists of upper and lower halves which fit into each other so that the whole vessel with its contents can be inverted during cooking.


History

The dish is generally credited with having been created during the time of
Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was President of France from 1848 to 1852 and then Emperor of the French from 1852 until his deposition in 1870. He was the first president, second emperor, and last ...
by the chef Adolphe Dugléré, a pupil of Carême, when Dugléré was head chef at the Café Anglais, the leading Paris restaurant of the 19th century, where he reputedly named the dish for one of the ''grandes cocottes'' of the period. There is disagreement about which beauty the dish was named after: the actress Anna Judic or Anna Deslions. In ''
Mastering the Art of French Cooking ''Mastering the Art of French Cooking'' is a two-volume French cookbook written by Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, both from France, and Julia Child, from the United States. The book was written for the American market and published by Kno ...
'',
Simone Beck Simone "Simca" Beck (7 July 1904 – 20 December 1991) was a French cookbook writer and cooking teacher who, along with colleagues Julia Child and Louisette Bertholle, played a significant role in the introduction of French cuisine, French cooki ...
and
Julia Child Julia Carolyn Child (Birth name#Maiden and married names, née McWilliams; August 15, 1912 – August 13, 2004) was an American chef, author, and television personality. She is recognized for having brought French cuisine to the American pu ...
comment that to many people, "''pommes Anna'' is the supreme potato dish of all time". Traditionally, Pommes Anna accompanies
sirloin In American butchery, the sirloin steak (called the ''rump steak'' in British butchery) is cut from the sirloin, the subprimal posterior to the short loin where the T-bone, porterhouse, and club steaks are cut. The sirloin is divided int ...
of beef (roast and garnished with tartlets filled with spinach purée) or ''Cavour'' (sautéed, blanched beef marrow slices on top), or (browned, braised in white wine and
demi-glace Demi-glace (, 'half glaze') is a rich brown sauce in French cuisine used by itself or as a base for other sauces. The term comes from the French word ''glace'', which, when used in reference to a sauce, means "icing" or "glaze." It is traditi ...
mixed with truffle, ox tongue, mushroom strips and peas). The dish is also a traditional accompaniment to tournedos steaks, such as ''Armenonville'' (garnished with creamed morels; deglazed with
Madeira Madeira ( ; ), officially the Autonomous Region of Madeira (), is an autonomous Regions of Portugal, autonomous region of Portugal. It is an archipelago situated in the North Atlantic Ocean, in the region of Macaronesia, just under north of ...
and veal gravy), (with stuffed tomatoes, and creamed celery), ''carignan'' (with artichoke hearts and
asparagus Asparagus (''Asparagus officinalis'') is a perennial flowering plant species in the genus ''Asparagus (genus), Asparagus'' native to Eurasia. Widely cultivated as a vegetable crop, its young shoots are used as a spring vegetable. Description ...
), and ''Louis XV'' (garnished with a tartlet filled with minced mushrooms with a truffle slice on top and served with tournedos covered with ). Pommes Anna is also served with sautéed chicken dishes such as ''Rivoli'' (deglazed with sherry, demi-glace and tomato purée, with chopped truffles), and with veal, such as (roast loin, with creamed spinach and Madeira sauce).


Variants

*Pommes Darphin – as for pommes Anna but with the potatoes cut into juliennes rather than slices. Also known as pommes Nana. *Pommes Massenet – as for pommes Anna, but the layers of potato are alternated with previously sautéed mushrooms.Verdon, p. 264 *Pommes Mireille – as for pommes Anna, but with a layer of black truffles and a layer of sliced artichoke hearts between the layers of potato. *Pommes Monselet – as for pommes Anna, but with layers of mushrooms and truffles in between the layers of sliced potato.Escoffier, p. 1044 *Pommes Salardaise – as for pommes Anna, but the layers of potato are alternated with sliced
black truffles ''Tuber melanosporum'', called the black truffle, Périgord truffle or French black truffle, is a species of truffle native to Southern Europe. It is one of the most expensive edible fungi in the world. In 2013, the truffle cost between 1,000 a ...
. *Pommes Voisin – as for pommes Anna, with grated cheese over each layer of potato.Escoffier, p. 1046


See also

*
List of foods named after people A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...


References


Sources

* * * * * {{Potato dishes French cuisine Potato dishes Baked foods