Musical Spuds (or Lyrical Duchesse Potatoes)

Well, after that little rant, here’s a bit of sat-fat-and-carbs action for you – with due acknowledgement to Handel for inspiration in the musical shapes department. Musical shaping aside, these are basically duchesse potatoes, made when an egg-enriched mash is piped into shapes and baked.

The classic formula – as described in the likes of Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire ^[1] and Larousse Gastronomique ^[2] – calls for butter, egg and egg yolks to be added to the mash, though you’ll see plenty of variants which add milk, cream and/or cheeses to the mix. Really, you can add whatever you like – I’ve used goat’s cheese and mint here – as long as you keep the mixture fairly stiff, which makes for firmer shapes that are that bit easier to pipe.

You’ll need:

800g potatoes (about 4 medium-sized specimens), preferably a floury variety
50g butter
100g fresh goat’s cheese
3 tblsp finely chopped fresh mint
salt to taste, plus more for boiling the potatoes
freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 eggs

You’ll also need:

A piping bag, star-shaped nozzle and a steady hand. If you don’t have a piping bag, you can use a clean plastic bag with a small opening snipped away from one corner.
A potato ricer is useful, though not essential, for mashing the potatoes.
You’ll need several large baking sheets on which to bake the shapes.

The Steps:

Peel your potatoes and cut into roughly even-sized slices, around 1-2cm thick. Rinse them under cold water.
Bring about 1.5l of water to the boil in a saucepan, add about 2 tsp salt and the potato slices.
Bring back to the boil and reduce to a simmer. Simmer gently, covered, for around 12-15 minutes or until just fork-tender.
Meanwhile, you can preheat your oven to 180C and grease your baking sheets.
When the potatoes are done, drain well and return them to the saucepan. Then either let them sit, covered by a tea-towel, for about 5 minutes or place the pan over a low heat and stir the potatoes gently for a minute or so while they dry out.
Place the butter in a small heavy saucepan over a medium heat and allow to melt.
Put the cooked and still warm potatoes through a potato ricer, if you have one, or mash with a potato masher or, if all else fails, a fork.
Pour in the melted butter and stir through the mash.
Crumble the goat’s cheese, add to the mash and stir well to combine.
Mix in the chopped mint and add salt and black pepper to taste.
Lightly beat the eggs and stir into the mash.
Now spoon enough of the mash into your piping bag to half-fill it, twist the top and, with a steady hand, squeeze the contents out onto your baking sheets and into whatever shapes take your fancy. You can just make shapes by hand if you prefer.
As soon as you have a baking sheet filled with shapes, bake for around 12-15 minutes or until the edges are golden, and get to work on piping the next lot. I probably baked 6 trays-worth with this amount, though treble clefs do take up a lot of real estate. Simpler shapes can probably be done more efficiently.
Serve as a side-dish – with the mint, I’m inclined to think this would be nice with lamb – or serve as party finger food.

The Variations:

You could certainly add some garlic here if you fancied – throw a couple of whole cloves in when boiling the potatoes – and you can replace the goat’s cheese and mint with different dairy and herb combinations, such as, say, sour cream and chives or gruyère and thyme.

The Results:

This amount probably feeds 4-6 as a side-dish, though the actual number of shapes you get will obviously depend on the size of your piping bag and the kind of shapes you’re after.