Pommes Gratinées

Pommes Gratinées (apples baked under an almond topping) teaches a quiet discipline: the topping must dry through before it takes colour. A fierce oven can give you a handsome surface and sticky egg white beneath, which is failure wearing a good coat. Mild heat, patience, then the faintest gold.

This is the pastry station's work, not the saucier's. The brigade version assumed vanilla syrup, apples prepared for Charlotte, and Pralin (No. 2352) waiting at the proper consistency. At home, make both apple layers in one wide pan and build only enough for four people. Preparing large quantities in advance was brigade scaffolding, so it goes. What stays is the dish itself: distinct poached quarters, a somewhat stiff bed of minced apple, and a fairly thin cover of Pralin (No. 2352). One cook, one stove, one evening.

The finished gratin should yield first with a delicate almond crust, then with tender apple and concentrated marmalade beneath. Set the oven low before the topping goes on. Dry first, colour second, and you have the whole lesson.