It’s French, it’s fancy, it’s beautiful. If it were a person, it would smoke a cigarette and look down on you. But oh, it’s so cool! If you’re feeling really posh, you might want to serve it by its proper French name, fondant aux pommes, but on a regular day, the English/French mash-up of pommes fondant does the job, too. I remember little GCSE French except for ‘C’est bien!’ which is very much the case here. You’ll need to make clarified butter: I’ve given two options for how – choose your favourite.
200/ 250 grams butter depending on clarifying method (to give 150g for the recipe), or 150g ghee
6 long red-skinned potatoes (peeled and trimmed top and bottom to give flat ends)
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 garlic cloves (crushed)
5 thyme sprigs (cut into 5cm spears)
200 millilitres chicken stock
flaky salt (to serve)
Method
Fondant Aux Pommes is a guest recipe by Poppy O'Toole so we are not able to answer questions regarding this recipe
To make your clarified butter, either melt the 200g of butter in a small saucepan over a low heat – you want it to just melt, no more. Then, carefully pour the uppermost liquid into a container. As soon as you see the white liquid underneath, stop pouring. You have clarified butter in the container and buttermilk at the bottom of the pan. Or, place a 250g block of butter in a microwave-safe dish. Microwave until melted, but do not stir! Place the container in the fridge to set the butter. Then, poke a hole in the corner and let the milky bit out (that’s the buttermilk). Tip out the block of set butter and use a knife to scrape off any leftover buttermilk – there you have your clarified butter. Now you’ll just need to melt it down to use.
Stand each potato up on one of its flat ends and, using a 4cm round cookie cutter, press down from the top to create a cylinder. If you don’t have a cookie cutter, neatly cut around the edges with a knife. Keep some of the chunky trimmings for later. Trim the potatoes to make sure they are all the same height (about 5–6cm tall) and the top and bottom of each is as level as possible.
Find a saucepan that’s just big enough to fit the potatoes when they are standing on one end (it should be a tight squeeze) and tall enough to be able to cover the potatoes with liquid. Remove the potatoes again, and set aside.
Heat the oil in the empty saucepan over a medium heat. Once hot, add the potatoes, least attractive end down, and leave them to colour in the pan for 7–10 minutes, until golden. Using some kitchen tongs, flip them over on to the opposite flat end and add your melted, clarified butter (this should come about halfway up the sides of the potatoes), crushed garlic and spears of thyme. If there are any gaps between the potatoes, push some of your potato trimmings into them. There should be no wiggle room. After about 5 minutes, add the stock to cover.
Leave the pan over a medium–high heat for about 10 minutes, until the liquid has reduced by around 1cm. Then, cover the potatoes snugly with a circle of baking parchment. Cook for 40 minutes, or until the potatoes have absorbed all of the liquid and butter and are tender. They should stick slightly to the base of the pan – don’t worry. Leave them to cool a bit and they will wiggle free. Turn them up the other way and sprinkle with flaky salt to serve.
Tell us what you think
Thank you {% member.data['first-name'] %}.
Explore more recipesYour comment has been submitted.