Sidedish

PRINTS, POTATOES & LAST YEAR’S FEAST

by mimithorisson

cover

“You are having two babies this year”, a lot of people kept telling me this spring. They meant, of course, the one living in my bump and my cookbook which was by then on its way to the printers. As many of you know by now the first one arrived, if not altogether surprisingly, at least surprisingly quickly at the end of May. The second baby is still on its way but at least in this case the delivery date is firmly fixed, the 28th of October, not a day later or before. The element of surprise is how many of you have already pre-ordered the book. It warms my heart that you should have such faith in my cooking that you are prepared to buy it unseen. Merci mille fois. I had a discussion about this with the good people at Clarkson Potter/Random House and we all thought it was a good idea to reward this faith in some way, our little way of saying thank you. After some deliberation we felt that offering all you pre-orderers a little print from Manger might be appreciated, and to be totally honest (for this is an honest blog) we certainly won’t mind if this encourages even more people to pre-order the book.

It works like this. Those of you who have preordered the book or will order the book before the official publication date can click on http://app.snapapp.com/AKitchenInFrance and fill in your details. If you have any problems with this procedure or questions please feel free to contact [email protected] The person on the other end of this email is a fine fellow called Kevin Sweeting. I had the pleasure to spend some time with him at Random House in NY in March and I think we are all in good hands with him. We chose three prints that we feel represent well what we are doing and hope you will agree with our selection. Those who fill in their details will receive one of the prints, which one will be a surprise. I hope you are happy with this arrangement and our selection of prints, that is all that matters.
Available for presale on
Amazon – B&N – Indiebound

The three prints

meringueprint

treeprint

pearsprint

A feast in October

Last year in October we had one of the best outdoor feasts we’ve ever had. We had already passed our deadline for the book but some recipes had not yet been photographed. The team from Canal+ were arriving the following Monday and we knew from experience that shooting for TV leaves little room for anything else. So we had this idea to throw one final glorious feast the Sunday before, cook everything that was missing from the book and have a blast of a time. And we did. We invited some of our favorite people and I started at the stove. It was a beautiful day, a beautiful feast. Of course it wasn’t seamless, we had a few mini-crisis. There were no cèpes to be found, the weather was fickle at best, Oddur forgot to buy gambas. In the end it all worked out, our friends unexpectedly brought the gambas, our other friends, the snail farmers sorted out the cèpes. Even the weather showed a kind side. If there was ever a “Manger event”, this was it. Oddur jumping on tables to photograph, dogs stealing food, more wine than perhaps was necessary and so much food that everyone left happy and heavy.
A standout dish from that day was funnily enough not the quails, gambas or even the foie gras. Not even the cèpes tartlets or harvest soup or apple tart with orange flower water. That day the dish that we all wished we had more of was the simplest, humblest of all. The potatoes, Lyonnaise style. We’ve had this dish countless times this year and speaking of babies, when I was in the clinic with Audrey May, Oddur made it practically every night with his steak, quails and other extravaganzas. This summer he’s been cooking it with both our boys and some of the girls, I’ve been cooking it, it seems, every other night. If there ever was a dish for every season and every occasion this is it … and here it is, in all its simple glory. Anyone can do it, and that’s what I love about it – you see for me cookbooks are there to inspire and encourage, to give recipes but also ideas.

Potatoes and Onions, now that’s an idea.

feastview

feastprep

feastapples

feastquail

feastfab

feastdav

louisefeast

feastpumpkin

lyonnaisepotatoes

Potatoes à la Lyonnaise

Serves 4

2 pounds/ 900 g new potatoes, peeled
About 11 tablespoons/ 150 g unsalted butter
Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 onions, thinly sliced
A bunch of fresh parsley, leaves removed and finely chopped

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C.

Put the potatoes in a large pot, add enough salted cold water to cover, bring to a boil, and cook until parboiled, 10 to 15 minutes. Drain in a colander and rinse under cool running water. Let cool for a few minutes, then slice the potatoes into 1/8-inch/3- to 4-mm-thick slices.

In a large sauté pan, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter. Add about one-quarter of the potatoes and fry, seasoning them with salt and pepper, until golden, about 6 minutes. Transfer to a plate. Continue frying the potatoes, adding more butter each time (you should use about 8 tablespoons / 120 g in total), until all of them are cooked.

Meanwhile, in another sauté pan, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons / 30 g butter over medium heat. Cook the onions until golden, about 5 minutes.

Return all of the potatoes to the pan, add the onions, and mix gently. Cook for 5 more minutes for the flavors to combine.

Transfer the potatoes and onions to a large baking dish. Bake until gently sizzling, about 10 minutes.

Sprinkle the parsley over the potatoes and serve.

feastgeorge