Pommes Persillade is one of those dishes that sounds fancy, or at least overly complicated if you do not understand French. In fact, it’s really a simple potatoes dish that makes a great side to a main course. What’s wonderful about this dish is how rustic it is. I give you measurements in this recipe of course, but you can easily adjust the ingredients to suit your needs.
Pommes Persillade only uses the center of the potato and it should be cut into cubes. While this is called a medium dice, please don’t look at my picture and expect perfection. I had a bit of difficulty measuring out my cubes so they came out more like rectangular prisms. Good thing I don’t work in a French brasserie.
The best way to cut these potatoes is just to cut off the four sides, and then cut off the two ends. I know, it looks like you are wasting a lot of potato, but you can use the leftovers to make my wonderful spicy chorizo potato skins. That’s actually what I did in the same day. Alona and I had a classic American appetizer along with a classic French side dish as our dinner.
The seasoning for Pommes Persillade is just chopped up parsley and garlic. I used flat leaf parsley because it was what was in my market, but you can use curly if you like. For the garlic I chopped it by hand. I don’t recommend a garlic press because you will lose a lot of the good garlicky oils that you want in this recipe. Other than these two ingredients, just simple salt and pepper is all that I use.
The potato cubes need to be boiled a bit before you fry them. This is known as par-boiling because you are just partially boiling them. This ensures the insides are soft and makes it easier to get a nice crust on the outside. Then after 15 minutes in the water, strain the potatoes and give them a good shake. And right into a pan with hot oil. Use a neutral oil for this, leave the olive oil for other recipes.
After the potatoes get browned on both sides (yes, you have to individually flip them, or flip the whole pan if you are lazy like me) you should add a whole lot of butter. I used about 50 grams of butter for this recipe, but hey, more butter is better. Once the butter hits the pan, lower the temperature to medium low.
Once the butter just begins to melt you can toss in all the parsley and garlic. You want the garlic to fry in the butter a bit, but not burn. So this step only takes about a minute. Once everything gets fragrant give the pan a good toss so all the potatoes are coated, then plate and serve. Your pommes persillade is ready to be enjoyed.
Pommes Persillade (Potatoes With Parsley And Garlic)
Equipment
- Pot
- Pan
Ingredients
- 4 large Potatoes each potato will only create about 8 cubes from the core, so make sure to save the scraps for other potato dishes like baked skins or chips.
- 5 cloves Garlic chopped
- 1/4 cup Parsley chopped
- 1 tsp Black Pepper freshly cracked
- 1/2 tsp Salt or to taste
- 50 grams Butter about 3-4 tablespoons
- 3 tbsp Oil neutral, like sunflower or canola
Instructions
- Prepare the potatoes by doing a medium dice. Cut all four sides off, along with the top and bottom until you are left with a rectangular prism of potato. Then split that lengthways, and then the two halves lengthways again. Then cut cubes from the sticks.
- Set a pot of boiling water. Add the potato cubes and let boil for 15 minutes. While this is happening you can prepare the garlic and parsley.
- In a pan add the oil and put the heat on max. When the potatoes have boiled for 15 minutes, strain them and give them a shake to get rid of excess water. Then pour out the potatoes directly onto the hot pan. Let fry in the oil for about 2 minutes a side. You can agitate the pan if you want to get the oil more up on the sides.
- Add the butter and once it begins to melt add the garlic and parsley. Let cook just until the garlic and parsley gets fragrant. At this point you can also add some salt if you want. Shake the pan around and give it a good toss to coat all the potatoes in the garlic and parsley.
- Move to a side dish plate, or a tapas plate, and serve hot.
