Boulangère Pommes de Terre (Baker Potatoes)

My two years of French has made me somewhat capable of pronunciation en Français, but my middle-schoolesque humor negates those capabilities. While cooking this adaptable, easy potato recipe my lips said boulangère potatoes but my mind thought Lingerie Potatoes, ha ha! Panty Potatoes!!

I'm not used to weighing ingredients, otherwise I might not have been so amused by my tower of potatoes. That's 1kg placed jenga style on my tiny kitchen scale. Although the recipe ended up requiring two baking dishes and then more sliced potatoes, and then more salt and pepper, and then . . . (vicious cycle). Originally weighed out 1kg.

Before the pan/potato quantity issue I ran into the too lazy to make/buy chicken stock so will use beef stock issue. Because beef stock has a deeper bolder richer pimpier flavor I felt justified in adding 2 oz of water to make the required 500ml of stock. Ultimately, if you have to spread this dish out over multiple pans you might need more stock to cover the potato and onion slices.

So pretty. So tear-inducing. I wish I had a mandoline. The first and prettiest layer in the baking dish. Each subsequent layer seemed to hump up more in the middle. Might be due to my uneven slices.

For one of the baking dishes I remembered to put the dabs of butter on top after pouring the stock, that is not this dish. It doesn't really matter. It's hard to mess up this recipe. We ate this with roasted chicken* and a fresh tomato salad.


Recipe Time
(adapted from the Almost Bourdain site, also an adaptation, so this might be some freaky hybrid)
Serves 8ish

2.5 lbs potatoes
1 large onion
2 Tbsp finely chopped parsley (I used dried parsley which can be stronger than fresh but not in a bad way)
14 oz hot beef stock
2 oz water
2 Tbsp butter
salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
2. Thinly slice the potatoes and onion. Alternate layers of potato and onion in a 8"x8" baking dish (or whatever baking dish you think you can fit multiple layers in), sprinkle parsley, salt and black pepper between each layer. Finish with a layer of potatoes.
3. Pour the hot stock over the top and add dabs of butter.
4. Bake, covered with foil, on the middle shelf of the oven for 30 minutes. Remove the foil. Bake for another 30 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender and the top golden brown.

*And by "roasted chicken" I mean impulse buy chicken that we ate over the kitchen sink to save on plate washing.