Last week on Top Chef, Savannah Miller won the Elimination Challenge with her pommes pavé. I think someone else had made this dish earlier in the season (or at least thought about making it), but seeing this episode finally gave me the inspiration to make this delicious dish at home. It did not disappoint! Pommes pavé is essentially creamy scalloped potatoes, but much more thinly sliced and then cut into little squares and fried in a shallow layer of fat or oil. I used duck fat that I infused with some aromatics, added a dollop of chilly dilly sauce, topped it off with some caviar and garnished with some thyme. You do not want to miss out on making this yourself as it’s like hash browns meets grilled cheese. Watch the full episode here.
Pommes Pavé
Potatoes
Butter at room temperature
1 shallot, minced
Garlic
Fresh Thyme
1.25 cups cream
4 russet potatoes
~4 oz duck fat
Chilly Dilly Sauce (recipe below)
Caviar (optional)
Chilly Dilly Sauce
½ cup sour cream
2 tbsp mayonnaise
½ tsp onion powder
Pinch of garlic powder and cayenne pepper
~1 tbsp minced fresh dill
In a saucier or small pot, melt 1 tbsp of butter over medium heat and saute the shallot with a pinch of salt for a few minutes until softened.
Add in 2 cloves of peeled and smashed garlic, followed by the cream and a few sprigs of fresh thyme. Stir until fragrant, then add in the cream, 2 tbsp of butter, and bring to a simmer. Continue to lightly simmer until reduced and slightly thickened.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Grease the inside of a loaf pan with butter. Add in a large sheet of parchment paper, leaving several inches of overhang, and grease the paper with butter.
Then, peel your potatoes and slice them lengthwise, using a mandoline, about 1/16” thick.
Once the sauce is ready, pour it into a medium-sized mixing bowl through a fine mesh strainer. Add in the sliced potatoes and mix well.
Then, begin to layer the potatoes, overlapping them in 2 rows across the bottom of the prepared pan. Once you are 2 layers deep, lightly season with salt and pepper and sprinkle on some pieces of butter. Continue this process until all the potatoes are used up.
Pour the remaining cream over the potatoes, fold the parchment over the potatoes and give a firm press to even everything out. Cover the pan with aluminum foil and bake for 90 minutes.
While the potatoes bake, combine all of the Chilly Dilly ingredients in a bowl, along with some salt and pepper, and stir until combined. Cover and chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
Once the potatoes have cooked for 90 minutes, remove from the oven and place on a rack and allow them to cool for 15 minutes on a wire rack. After cooling, remove the foil and place another loaf pan on top of the parchment enclosed potatoes. Fill the loaf pan with canned goods and press down as hard as you can.
Let the potatoes fully cool to room temperature. Give the top loaf pan another good press, then wrap it all up with cling wrap and place in the refrigerator for 8-16 hours.
Once the potatoes have chilled, remove them from the pan, unwrap the parchment and trim away the uneven edges. Then slice into inch-wide lengths and cut all of the lengths into halves to form rough squares. Let the portioned potatoes come to room temperature for about 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes, melt the duck fat in a large nonstick skillet set over medium-high heat. Add in half of the portioned potatoes, along with some sprigs of thyme and 2 peeled and smashed cloves of garlic. Once the garlic has browned on one side, flip them and continue cooking, and adjust the heat to medium.
After another minute the other side of the garlic will be browned. Remove the garlic and thyme, then flip the potatoes as well, basting them with the infused oil. The potatoes will need another 3-4 minutes to finish. Baste once or twice more before removing the fried pavé to some paper towels to drain.
Repeat the frying process with the remaining pavé.
To serve, sprinkle with a little flaky sea salt. Add a dollop of chilly dilly sauce, top with caviar (if desired) and garnish with thyme leaves.
______________________________ Copyright 2024, Brendan McCann, All Rights Reserved.
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