Pommes de Terre à la Crème

Pommes de Terre à la Crème (waxy potatoes in reduced cream) teaches reduction in its clearest form. The one true thing to know before touching a pan is that the cream isn't poured on as a dressing. It must boil around the thick potato rounds until its water cooks away and the sauce clings, then cold, uncooked cream restores its suppleness.

The original entry assumed a wide sauté pan on a busy range, cream already boiling, and a cook free to finish the potatoes à la minute. It needed none of the stockpots, roux, or salamander that supported grander formulas. For one cook, one stove, one evening, a 10-inch sauté pan, a small saucepan, and four side portions replace the brigade quantity. Holding cream ready through an entire service was scaffolding and can go. Boiling the potatoes whole, peeling them hot, slicing them thick, reducing them in cream, and finishing with raw cream are the dish and must stay.

When it's right, each intact round wears an ivory gloss and the pan holds sauce, not a puddle. Watch the final two minutes closely. The step that matters most is stopping the reduction while the cream still moves, before it turns oily or the potatoes begin to break.