07 January 2013

Fresh ham, sprouts, and a crown of potatoes

Recently I decided to make something in the kitchen that I had seen on Ivan's blog, A Normandy Kitchen. Ivan is a British man who has professional training as a cook, and he makes amazing dinners and takes beautiful photos of the food he cooks.

An oven-roasted slice of fresh ham with Brussels sprouts and a crown of potatoes

The dish that caught my eye this time was something Ivan calls a "potato crown." You can see it on his blog here. Mine didn't come out exactly the same as his, but it was good in its own way. A crown of potatoes is a layer of mashed potato studded with whole or halved small potatoes, as you'll see.

I used potatoes of the Charlotte variety. Charlottes are sort of all-purpose pommes de terre — they are waxy enough to stand up to boiling without falling apart, and they are mealy enough to be good as sauteed or French-fried potatoes. Or as mashed potaotes. They served my purpose.

Since the Charlottes weren't uniform in size, I picked through them and chose the ones that were long and skinny. I figured I could cook them until they were nearly done and then cut pieces of the same length (or height) to use "whole" (not mashed), and then I could make mashed potatoes out of the pieces and whole potatoes I had left.

What you do is to stand the cut (or whole small) potatoes up on their pointy end in a buttered or oiled dish, packed together so that they won't fall over. Then you make fairly stiff mashed potatoes and spread a layer of them over the top of the others. Put the dish in a medium oven and let it cook as long as an hour, until the top of the mashed potato has browned and all the potato has had time to cook through completely. To serve it, turn it out of the dish so that the whole potatoes form the "jewels" in the crown.

The texture combination of whole boiled and mashed potato is pretty good.

The rest of the meal was a pork roast — a so-called rouelle, which is a thick slice of fresh ham — and some Brussels sprouts that we had in the fridge. After browning the meat slightly, uncovered, in a hot oven, I turned down the heat and cooked the pork roast long (four hours) and slow (150ºC, 300ºF) in a covered pan in the oven, on a bed of sliced onions, celery stalks, and bay leaves. I poured in some white wine and sprinkled some olive oil and dried thyme over the top of the lean cut of pork.

When we make Brussels sprouts, we often blanch or parboil them first, then slice them in half and sauté them in olive oil or butter. You can see them in the first photo up above. A little flour sprinkled on during the sautéing gives them a nice golden-brown crust.

15 comments:

  1. A thought occurred to me while reading this: you have come a long way from slinging reconstituted onions onto hotdogs at Sportsman's Pier!
    ~Margaret

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  2. LOL, Margaret. Those were the days. I remember having a sawed-off pool cue behind the lunch counter so that I could defend myself when I worked the graveyard shift! I was best known, I think, for my egg sandwiches.

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  3. That looks lovely Ken... Pauline and I are fans of Charlotte... the only potato with an added butter gene!
    Having just had a rat [or similar large rodent] visiting our cellar and going for the Remarka spuds only... I have decided that it wasn't the rat from Ratatouille... nice spuds, but not Charlotte.

    In Leeds we had a gourmet mouse visit... all the Charlotte seed potatoes were eaten one year... surrounded by fifteen other varieties... all of which had had a nibble taken out of one of them... but that was all... the 24 Charlottes had only flakes of skin left in their eggboxes!!

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  4. Hello Ken,
    Thank you so much for the mention, very kind of you. Pleased you enjoyed the dish, the slow cooked ham looks really good with it.
    Best wishes,
    Ivan

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  5. Ken, you didn't mention soaking the ham... nor does the raw picture show that it had been... was it a demi-sel cut then?
    I've never come across this sort of ham joint, but have seen the cut as fresh pork in the supermarkets. This came from your mobile meat store did it?

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  6. I now do my choux de bruxelles the way you guys do-- very tasty that way.

    I'm not familiar with what this cut of meat is?

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  7. Delish. We love sprouts. And ham. And potatoes!

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  8. I read Ivan's blog too but never left a message. He has such great decorating taste and his recipes are amazing.

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  9. Tell us about the egg sandwiches some time. Didn't know you worked behind a lunch counter.

    The crown of potatoes is cool. Where in Dixie will I be able to find a charlotte potato? We are getting a Publix soon, maybe there?

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  10. Evelyn, I bet Yukon Gold potatoes will work. My mashed potatoes had too much liquid in them, really. Better to keep them dry.

    I worked the night shift (9 pm to 5 am) as a short-order cook at a fishing pier "lunch" counter when I was in college. It was wild. You haven't lived until you've experienced that crowd that stays up all night. And we didn't serve beer or ... wine... in the place.

    All, more about the fresh ham tomorrow.

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  11. I'd discreetly swallow the porcelaine Baby Jesus if I could avoid having to wear a crown made of potatoes.

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  12. Hi Kwn ~

    It all looks so delicious....For
    Christmas I did the Brussel Sprouts
    with saute'd pistachio nuts and wine chicken broth...interesting
    flavor combination.
    A very blessed New Year to you and
    yours.

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  13. Hi Kwn ~

    It all looks so delicious....For
    Christmas I did the Brussel Sprouts
    with saute'd pistachio nuts and wine chicken broth...interesting
    flavor combination.
    A very blessed New Year to you and
    yours.

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  14. The "potato crown" is an intriguing idea.

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