French Rustic Home Fries: Pommes Persillade

This dish is most often used as a side dish. I prefer to use fresh parsley, rather than dried, especially as fresh parsley is easily available (of course, the affects of the pandemic have made the availability of many products less reliable). This is such a tasty and easy dish to make. The idea is to fry the potato pieces so that they develop a somewhat crispy outer layer that surrounds a soft and creamy inner texture. I used the term "French Rustic Home Fries" in the title, because if I used "French Fried Potatoes," readers would likely assume the potatoes to be "French fries," but these aren't really typical home fries either, because they aren't potato slices, but rather they are traditionally diced potato pieces.    

Ingredients (4 servings)

1 pound potatoes, peeled, cut into about 1 inch dice (keep the pieces close in size to cook evenly)

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 heaping tablespoons chopped parsley 

1/3 cup shredded or grated Parmesan cheese

2/3 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt (remember, the cheese has salt)

3 tablespoons butter 

2 tablespoons olive oil 

Boil the potato pieces in lightly salted water; maintain a steady boil until the potato pieces are cooked through, but NOT mushy (this is important). Drain the potatoes VERY well, so they will get a crispy layer around them. Heat the olive oil in a skillet (cast iron is good for this, but not necessary) over medium high heat; then fry the potatoes in the hot oil, turning them to brown them on all sides (that crispy outer layer will develop). The idea is to brown the outside of the potatoes, but to keep the inside soft and creamy; so, frying the potatoes does require your close attention until the potatoes are browned. Add the butter to the skillet and as it melts, add the garlic and parsley, stirring everything around for 60 to 90 seconds. Remove the skillet from the heat and stir the potatoes to make sure they are all coated with the seasoned butter. Sprinkle on the salt and pepper and the shredded or grated cheese. I put the cheese in the hot skillet with the potatoes (remember, the skillet is off of the heat), so that it just starts to melt and/or brown a little, but you can wait to add the cheese until you serve the potatoes.  

 

 

WORD HISTORY:

Sum-This word is related to "superior" and "summit," both Latin-derived words borrowed by English from Latin-based French, to "soprano," another Latin-derived word, but in this case English borrowed it from Italian, and to "summary," another Latin-derived word borrowed from that language, and it is distantly related to "over," a word from the Germanic roots of English. "Sum" goes back to the Indo European root "upo," with the notion of "from under" or "from below," "to go over/above." This then provided the base of a comparative form, "uper," and from this came the extended form adjective "sup-mos," meaning "uppermost, highest, top." This gave Latin the adjective "summus" with the same basic meaning, the feminine form of which was "summa" with those same basic meanings, as well as the figurative meanings "main" and "highest rank." This passed to Latin-based Old French as "somme," which became "summe/sume" in the French spoken by the descendants of the Normans in England, and English borrowed the word in the early 1300s as "summe," with one of its primary meanings being "an amount of money," and later the meaning "the total of numbers added together," apparently dating to the Roman math system of adding numbers from the bottom of a column upward, then listing the amount at the top; thus, "the summe," taken from the Latin "summa totalis;" that is, "the sum total," with "summe" contracted to "sum." The idea of an expression like, "the sum of the article," comes from the notion of "the main point," or "the sum of important parts" of an article (book, speech, movie). The verb came from French "sommer," meaning "to add up numbers/amounts," with the French form also from Latin "summa."