As many of my friends know, I’m a particular sucker for recipes, or variations on recipes, that are a.) simple, b.) made with ingredients on hand or easy to acquire and c.) slightly unpredictable.
Also, delicious.
All of these qualifications are met by a tweaking of the classic Italian dessert, turinois.
Now, turinois is supposed to be made with mashed chestnuts. I don’t know about you, but chestnuts of any kind are not likely to be found either in my pantry, or in my grocery store.
But think about it. Why did they use chestnuts, those gourmandizing Italian peasants, so long ago? For this is a peasant dish, and the sign of it is that it is a.) simple and b.) made with ingredients on hand or easy to acquire. In fact, I am a postmodern peasant, in that I only add that “slightly unpredictable” thing to my recipe loves. Well, obviously chestnuts were a staple item in their pantry. As potatoes are in mine.
As a result, I’m always on the lookout for good potato recipes, same as those well-fed Italian peasants were on the lookout for ways to serve what chestnuts were an overflow from making a banquet for their pigs. So years ago, in a long forgotten syndicated food column by James Beard, I found such a recipe and pounced. Beard brilliantly pointed out that said chestnuts could be replaced by—oh, glory!—mashed potatoes. And not just any potatoes, but Idaho potatoes, otherwise known as russet potatoes, which just happen to be the most easily acquired and least expensive of all the potatoes sold in Oregon.
I still have my old, crumbling, tattered, brown copy of that column. I used to make the dish all the time for holidays. And it was always a hit.
Then for some unknown reason, I forgot about it. My guess is because the ingredients list he has is somewhat finicky in terms of amounts. I like amounts to be easily measured, with not anything left over. For example, I didn’t like his sugar measurement, which was a few tablespoons over a cup. WHY NOT JUST A DAMNED CUP? I can still hear my exasperated younger self say, even as I, ever obedient, pulled out the measuring cup and spoons.
Now I would just ignore the measurement and add stuff by eye over the cup. But that was then.
This is now.
I remembered this dessert when a dinner guest was due. Celiac intolerant. And I wanted chocolate. But how to do it without flour?
I dug up the old, tattered column, in an even older and more tattered blue binder I’d kept back then, and was amused by the finickyness of the instructions, that perfectionism that so exasperated the younger me.
So I noodled around the internet. I figured anything with a name as elegant as ‘turinois’ had to have a bunch of interpretations, and by jiminy, that turned out to be true. But the one I was interested in was the one from a fancy restaurant that turned out to be the simplest, both in ingredients and in measurements. It was, predictably, for mashed chestnuts, which is probably why I had overlooked it before. But all I had to do now was combine Beard’s brilliant substitution of potatoes with the new recipe’s elegant simplicity, and whammo! Fabulous dessert, with all the ingredients already on hand in the cupboard.
Oh, one difference. Both recipes called for vanilla extract and Gran Marnier. I like almond flavor with my chocolate. So I just substituted. To great effect, might I add.
Like this:
Potato Turinois ingredients (will serve 6 to 8 people, and it keeps! So leftovers, yum.)
–1/4 pound butter
–5 ounces bittersweet chocolate (I used a little over 5 ounces because that was what I had, and who wants to keep a half ounce of chocolate in the cupboard, probably forever?)
–1 cup sugar (yay!)
–1/2 tsp almond extract (or vanilla)
–1/4 cup Amaretto (or Gran Marnier, or Irish whiskey, or or or)
–1 pound russet potatoes, peeled, chopped, boiled or steamed, drained, run through a food mill or ricer (this last very important so the potatoes don’t turn into a gluey mass—thank you, James Beard)
How you do it:
1.) Line a loaf pan with foil, brush with butter or flavorless oil
2.) Boil or steam the potatoes (I like to boil them with a double boiler atop, see next step)
3.) Melt the butter and chocolate (I like to do this in the double boiler atop the boiling potatoes)
4.) Add sugar, almond extract, liqueur to melted chocolate and butter
5.) Beat gently till smooth
6.) Food mill, or rice, the potatoes into the mixture, stir gently till combined
7.) Pour into the prepared loaf pan
8.) Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours, 24 hours just fine
9.) Serve in slices with whipped cream mixed with a touch of almond extract
10.) Make delighted guests guess how it was made.
That’s it!
How I love the potato.