Pommes de terre... mais comment ?

It's going to be potatoes (pommes de terre) for lunch today. I bought a bag of nice potatoes at SuperU the other day. They are of the Anoë variety, which are « pommes de terre à chair ferme »  and are ideal for steaming (pommes vapeur), sautéeing (pommes rissolées), or scalloping (en gratin). In other words, they are boiling potatoes, not baking potatoes.

So this morning I have to decide how I'm going to cook them. One dilemma I have to resolve involves bouillon vs. cheese. I have a liter of smoky chicken broth (as well as a liter of smoky pork broth) in the refrigerator. I also have some cheeses — Mozzarella, Munster, Neufchâtel, Emmental, and Tomme de Savoie — that are lurking in the fridge and calling out to me. "Melt us!" — that's what I hear them saying.

Truffade

One possible potato preparation for lunch is truffade, a specialty of the mountainous Auvergne region of central France. It is made with thinly sliced potatoes, smoked pork lardons (diced thick-sliced bacon), and a bland young Cantal cheese. You cook it in a skillet on top of the stove. Here's a link. Mine will have to be unconventional, because I don't have the prescribed kind of cheese.

Pommes de terre à la boulangère

A second possibility is pommes de terre à la boulangère — potatoes cooked the way the baker's wife would cook them, which means in the still-hot bread oven after the day's bread is baked. These potatoes are cooked in broth with aromatics (onions, garlic, herbs) as a kind of scalloped-potato casserole. Problem is, the pommes boulangère, don't include cheese or lardons. Here's a link.

Pommes de terre gratinées clermontoises (et deux boudins noirs)

Another Auvergne specialty is called pommes de terre gratinées clermontoises and is definitely a possibility. It's made with whole boiled or steamed potatoes, cream, and cheese. You mash the cooked potatoes slightly with the back of a fork to flatten them, put them in a baking dish, and then you pour on cream, sprinkle on grated cheese, and bake everything in the oven. Again, here's a link. If I choose this one, I might have to be rebellious and add some lardons — or cook some sausages to go with the potatoes.

Pommes de terre fumées

Finally, there's an Alsace specialty that is really tempting. It's called pommes de terre fumées ("smoked potatoes") and is made with sliced potatoes, butter, onions, and smoked bacon lardons — but no cheese. Again, a link to the recipe. I have some decisions to make while I'm out walking in the vineyard with Tasha this morning.