Pommes de Terre au Lard

Pommes de Terre au Lard (potatoes with salt pork) teaches how a little browned flour turns cooking fat and consommé into a proper braising sauce. Know the one true thing before touching the pan: the flour must lose its raw paleness in the butter before the consommé arrives. That brief roux gives the dish its nutty depth and lets the gravy cling to every quartered potato.

The formula assumed a saucier beside a stockpot of consommé that never went cold, a service timbale, and enough mouths for twice this batch. At home, use ready-to-use consommé, one wide covered casserole, and a warmed deep serving bowl. I have halved the book's quantities for four, measured the butter the formula left to the cook's judgment, and replaced perfect brigade turning with neatly trimmed potato quarters. The proportions, flavorings, and order of cooking remain intact. One cook, one stove, one evening.

Keeping consommé on the fire all day and shaping every potato into an identical ornament are brigade scaffolding. Frizzling the pork and onions, browning the roux, and cooking the potatoes under a lid are the dish itself. Watch the roux above all: light hazelnut, never scorched, before you moisten it.