Pommes Anna


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, 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, generously doused with clarified butter, 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. 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 reign of Napoleon III by the chef Adolphe Dugléré, a leading a pupil of Carême. Dugléré was head chef at the Café Anglais, the most fashionable restaurant in Paris during the Second Empire, and 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, Simone Beck and Julia Child comment that to many people, "pommes Anna is the supreme potato dish of all time".
Traditionally, Pommes Anna accompanies sirloin of beef à la française or Cavour, or du couvent. The dish is also a traditional accompaniment to tournedos steaks, such as Armenonville, à la basque, carignan, and Louis XV. Pommes Anna is also served with sautéed chicken dishes such as Rivoli, and with veal, such as longe de veau à la française.

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.
  • 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.
  • Pommes Salardaise – as for pommes Anna, but the layers of potato are alternated with sliced black truffles.
  • Pommes Voisin – as for pommes Anna, with grated cheese over each layer of potato.