Pommes Anna
Encyclopedia
Pommes Anna or Anna potatoes, is a classic French dish of sliced, layered potato
es cooked in a very large amount of melted butter
.
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 melted butter, and baked/fried until they form a cake. Then they are turned upside down every ten minutes until the outside is golden and crispy. At the end of the cooking period, the dish is unmoulded and forms a cake 6 to 8 inches in diameter and about 2 inches high. It is then cut in wedges and served immediately on a hot plate, usually accompanying roasted meats.
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.
The dish is generally credited with having been created during the time of Napoleon III 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 Dame Judic (real name: Anna Damiens), or Anna DesLions.
Potato
The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...
es cooked in a very large amount of melted butter
Butter
Butter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk. It is generally used as a spread and a condiment, as well as in cooking applications, such as baking, sauce making, and pan frying...
.
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 melted butter, and baked/fried until they form a cake. Then they are turned upside down every ten minutes until the outside is golden and crispy. At the end of the cooking period, the dish is unmoulded and forms a cake 6 to 8 inches in diameter and about 2 inches high. It is then cut in wedges and served immediately on a hot plate, usually accompanying roasted meats.
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.
The dish is generally credited with having been created during the time of Napoleon III by the chef Adolphe Dugléré
Adolphe Dugléré
Adolphe Dugléré was a French chef and a pupil of Carême.- Les Frères Provençaux :Dugléré was a chef de cuisine to the Rothschild family until 1848, and was manager at the restaurant Les Frères Provençaux at the Palais-Royal from 1848 to 1866 which was owned by three men from Provence named...
, a pupil of Carême
Marie-Antoine Carême
Marie Antoine Carême , known as the "King of Chefs, and the Chef of Kings" was an early practitioner and exponent of the elaborate style of cooking known as haute cuisine, the "high art" of French cooking: a grandiose style of cookery favored by both international royalty and by the newly rich of...
, when Dugléré was head chef at the Café Anglais
Café Anglais (Paris)
The Café Anglais was a famous French restaurant located at the corner of the Boulevard des Italiens and the Rue de Marivaux in Paris, France.- History :...
, 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 Dame Judic (real name: Anna Damiens), or Anna DesLions.