Pomme Anna: elegant and buttery

Potatoes au gratin, scalloped potatoes, and Pommes Anna: all variations on thinly sliced potatoes cooked with plenty of rich dairy. The classic gratin has cream and cheese, the scalloped has cream but no cheese, and the Pommes Anna uses only butter. Since we were serving this with creamed spinach, I went with the cream-less Pommes Anna; they make for a stunning presentation.

Some recipes suggest a cast iron skillet and that seems smart for developing a deep crust, but ours was too big for this quantity. We used a heavy black steel pan, maybe 25cm (10 inch) diameter and it worked beautifully, and the spuds didn't even think of sticking. It needs to be oven safe since you're going to bake it hot (no Teflon: nonsticks can release toxic fumes at very high temperatures).

What the hell are "Yellow" potatoes? In the UK you see bin after bin of named varieties; in the US, they're too generic. I don't think what we used were Yukon Golds, but they weren't Russet or "Baking" potatoes either. You're looking for something not waxy and not fluffy. Next time I'd seek out the named Yukon Golds for some repeatability.

Serves 4 as a side

Pommes Anna, after inverting from the skillet

50 g (3 Tbs)   Butter, unsalted
               Black Pepper
               Salt
Pinch          Nutmeg, grated on microplane
700 g (1.5 Lb) "Yellow" Potatoes, peeled

Melt the butter and add the spices to the skillet, swirl around to coat all surfaces. Pour out into a bowl you can dip into it later.

Slice the potatoes thin, at most 1mm (1/16th inch), a mandolin is helpful here;  without rinsing (it removes the starch), layer the slices, slightly overlapping, into the buttered skillet.

Drizzle on some of the melted, seasoned Butter.

Add another layer, repeat with butter and layers until you've used up all the potatoes; I had about five layers, but 3-4 is probably fine.

Drizzle a bit more butter on top, cover with aluminum foil, add a lid to press down, and weight it down to compress a bit.

Sizzle over heat a few minutes to brown the bottom layer.

Place with foiled, weighted, covered skillet in a 220C (425F) oven for about 20 minutes to cook through.

Remove the pan, remove the weights, lid and foil, and return to oven to finish cooking, dry out and brown, about 30 minutes.

After the uncovered baking, nice and browned, and pulling away from the sides of the skillet. 

Test with fork: it should pierce easily.

Loosen if needed with thin spatula run around the side of the pan; turn out onto a plate to invert, it should look gorgeously browned with an attractive rosette pattern from the layers.

Slice carefully so as not to separate the layers, and serve.

Our layers adhered OK to each other but not as coherently as I'd like; I want something that won't separate as I'm cutting it for service. Maybe next time I'd back out the butter between the layers a bit so the starches will gel a bit more. Possibly cook longer and a bit lower with the foil off.