I was lucky to try the potatoes puree from Joel Robuchon: I was enthralled and immediately wanted to try making some myself. His recipe is all over the web and I learnt that he won lots of prizes for this purée. In brief, the key point is to remove all water and put a jaw-dropping quantity of butter. Here it is.
La purée de pommes de terre, recette de Joël Robuchon
- 1 kg de pommes de terre (rattes ou BF 15) (rattes potatoes: fingerling with a nutty flavor and smooth, buttery texture)
- 250 g de beurre bien froid (cold diced butter)
- 250 g de lait entier (whole milk)
- gros sel (salt)
- Lavez les pommes de terre, mais ne les pelez pas. Wash potatoes but do not peel.
- Dans une casserole remplie de deux litres d’eau froide additionnée d’une cuillerée à soupe de gros sel, faites cuire les pommes de terre à couvert jusqu’à ce que la lame du couteau plantée dedans en ressorte aisément (25-30 minutes environ). Coupez le beurre en petits dés, mais maintenez-les au réfrigérateur. Put whole potatoes in 2L of cold salted water and cook for 25-30 minutes with lid on. Dice the butter and keep in the fridge.
- Dès que les pommes de terre sont cuites, égouttez-les. Pelez-les encore tièdes. Passez-les au moulin à légumes équipé de la grille la plus fine, au-dessus d’une grande casserole. Portez la casserole sur feu moyen, faites légèrement dessécher la purée en la remuant vigoureusement avec une spatule en bois (5 minutes environ). Drain the potatoes, peel, mash them thinly while still warm and transfer in a big pan. Dry the mashed potatoes on medium heat, while vigorously mixing with a wooden spatula; it takes about 5 minutes.
- Dans le même temps, passez une petite casserole sous l’eau, videz-la sans l’essuyer. Dans cette casserole, faites bouillir le lait. Rinse a small pan under water, and boil the milk in.
- A feu doux, incorporez petit à petit aux pommes de terre le beurre très froid, bien dur, et coupé en morceaux, en remuant énergiquement la préparation afin de la rendre lisse et onctueuse. On a small heat, slowly add the butter to the mashed potatoes, mixing thoroughly so that the puree becomes sleek and smooth.
- Toujours à feu doux, ajoutez le lait très chaud, en petit filet, toujours en mélangeant énergiquement jusqu’à ce qu’il soit entièrement absorbé. Goûtez, salez et poivrez. Still on a low heat, slowly add the hot milk and whisk energetically until you are happy with the texture (more milk makes it more runny).
- Pour rendre la purée encore plus fine et légère, vous pouvez la passer à travers un tamis à toile très fine. You may pass the puree through a thin strainer to make it even more thin and light.
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| Boiling potatoes with skin on for 30 minutes |
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| Peel the potatoes while still warm |
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| Thinly mash the potatoes (mine were roughly mashed) |
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| Dry the mashed potatoes on a medium heat for 5 minutes |
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| Incorporate 1/4 of the weight of potatoes of cold butter |
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| The purée is becoming silky |
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| Add the hot milk (1/4 again) |
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| Whisking vigorously - I cheated and used the robot |
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Here it is; mine is not so smooth as I do not have a thin puree-ing tool
but the taste is amazing!!! |
Today's post is about the photo album I made about our previous three-days trip in Florence. There are plenty of ways you can proceed to make an album from scratch, the challenging aspect being the hinge. I like that it looks very much like a book and mine is rather small (size A5). The hinge is especially compact (which is not the case if you do the accordion style) and the pages are opening wide flat (I mean not folding, which happens if you sew them). 
I simply took coloured paper sheets and used gummed craft paper tape to keep them together. I love this tape, you can reposition it and still after several repositionings, it sticks very well. As it is flexible, it folds and unfolds happily. Here is a picture of the opening showing the junction of two different sheets.
This is another page where I folded a sheet and connected it to the rest from the outside. This allows me to have the whole space available as there is no tape in the middle. As mentioned earlier, you can see that the album opens fully and flat.
Here is an example of one of my pages, where I kept the brown tape apparent as I felt it was blending well with the colour scheme.
I also used inserts, in the style of Donna Downey. I hid the brown tape for this page, covering it with Washi tape.
More generally I used different widths of sheets, so one can have the neighboring page adding an interesting border.
I included tags as well to add some interest.
That's a photo of the hinge that I covered length-wise with a strip of tape, then at the top and bottom across to reinforce it, even if there is no obvious tension.
I decided to leave a couple of millimetres between the decorative paper and the edge on the cover so that the paper does not get its edges damaged.
All this would not have been possible without my new tool: the ATG 700 (Scotch). I do not like using glue stick as it sometimes gets thick, uneven and all my fingers gets sticky - which is not what I want when handling photos. I have been using "mouse" type glue dispensers but at 8.5 meters per roller I go through them really quickly. After some research, the ATG 700 - despite its hugeness - seemed the best option. I put a banana for scale.
This is what it is like in action. It leaves a trail of glue, "dry" and clean (left part, the shiny bit) You can touch it with your fingertip and won't get glue on yourself. Yes it is huge but still manages to be confortable, not bulky nor heavy. The way it is designed makes it easy to see what you are doing (where you are putting glue on), which is a very important parameter. 
Yes it is huge. Like a machine-gun. 
