Go to the Recipe: Potato Pavé
While I have made Potato Pavé in the past I have never made them to this epic level. Tim thanks for this detailed explanation on making these.
Love this! My wife complains when I deep fry - could these be crisped up in the air fryer?
Why US potatoes are white as snowballs ?
Air fryer instead of deep fry? Same question. Has anyone tried it?
Do yourself a big favor and buy some gloves before using a mandolin:
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MXUHHGK
Oh, hell yeah! I’m definitely making this.
Holy smokes I love you guys. Yours is the only food-content web site where I read an article and I'm like, "I HAVE to try that." Add this to my list of things you've inspired me to cook. (Nick's brioche doughnuts and Matthew's ultra cinnamon rolls are still my favorites.)
pan frying would work if you want to use less oil
For “maximum yield,” use a Hobart deli slicer. Not a plastic countertop slicer, either, but the real McCoy.
Yes, yes: I know. “Who has one of those around?”
Surprisingly, they’re more affordable than you may think. It’s just that even a modest model weighs 80 pounds and is a big, industrial thing to store. So prerequisite: have an unusually large kitchen.
I do have mandolines for the job and have used both the Hobart slicer and the DeBuyer making mille feuille. The Hobart wins.
I like this solution! I've definitely had a lot of success using a deli slicer for this application in restaurant settings. Though I'm not sure how successful we'd be convincing people to get a Hobart for their home kitchen.
Unfortunately, these do not brown or crisp up nearly as well in the air fryer. You could par fry these, then refresh them in an air fryer down the line. I'd even experiment with frying a whole batch, cooling them down, and freezing those fried portions to air fry later. I'd wager that this would be an effective strategy. (And you'd only have to whip out the fryer once.)
If deep frying is a major concern, then shallow frying in a pan would work decently well here. You might not get as even browning, but the result would be much closer to deep frying.
Hope this helps!
How long could you keep the chiller and unfried potato? I’m trying to back plan Christmas dinner and wondering if i can keep them molded and chilled for 2 days?
I just made these subbing duck fat for clarified butter and it was pretty tasteless. Maybe seasoning the potato slices with something else besides salt before baking would be better. A few other recipes use cream too. Will try that next time.
Russet potatoes are that white, nothing to do with where they are from.
Trying out now with overnight storing the buttered and packed slices.
You can keep the whole baked, pressed, and chilled pavé refrigerated in its loaf pan for for up to 1 week. We just did this for a series of dinners and it worked out great.
Worked like a charm!
Pavé press
Pavé, Hanger and Pear
Can you freeze these anywhere along the way? Freeze after the bake-and-chill, thaw then portion and fry? Portion them and freeze, thaw then fry?
I made the croissant version for Xmas and they were spectacularly welcomed.
Looks like a good use for a APO pan.
Hey Greg,
Freezing presents a challenge here. I tried freezing the whole loaf, and freezing individually cut portions for make-ahead possibility. In both cases, I observed syneresis: The freeze-thaw process resulted in the gel contracting, and water separated out, which caused some layers to separate out (this was even more apparent in the cut portions).
If you want to play with freezing, I would try par-frying portions, cooling them down, then freezing them on a sheet tray before storing them in a Ziplock freezer bag or airtight container. From here, you could feasibly reheat portions either in a fryer, or in a hot oven/air fryer. The par-frying process drives off moisture and sets more of a rigid structure, so the risk of syneresis is minimal.
Good luck!
I really like this idea, especially for more formal dinner parties. I tried the Croissant version without success. I could not get them to roll and stay together. I used a heavy mandolin and think I did not slice the potato’s thin enough. Used a small muffin pan. I will try the Pave next time. Seems easier to control the results. Thanks for all the comments and suggestions.
Prefer this over other versions that include cream.
Not a fan, will not try again. Lots of effort and somewhat tasteless. I was so looking forward to this. However, the un-fried pave did make wonderful potatoes for breakfast the next day. The oil was messy, somewhat expensive (what to do with the used oil?), and a pain to clean up. Many of the potatoes were discolored. I can only assume that the discoloration came after they were dried and before coated in butter (the dried slices sit for awhile as the others are dried). I have had these before and the taste was amazing. I'm not sure what to attribute the difference to.
For those saying it was lacking flavor, try duck fat instead of clarified butter. I thought it turned out excellent in a "duck frites" riff. Cheers
Looks great!
First of all - HECK YES.
It wasn’t like, THAT much work - just be careful to trip your potatoes to the correct width and use a mandolin with a very thin setting! .8mm is thin even for a mandolin!
First - you want large russets - don’t buy 6 potatoes from some delivery service, you need them to all be pretty large to be able to cut them down to 4.5inches long
Second - don’t mandolin the whole potato! Tim doesn’t go into quite enough detail but it’s clear from the video that he is discarding like, the outer 1/4 of each side of the potato so that the slices don’t get shorter.
Honestly, you might as well make potato rectangles from the start and just mandolin those? Feels like the wastage would be the same without a bunch of different length slices
Finally - For anyone saying these are “lacking flavor” - my brothers in cooking: *these are fried potatoes*. I don’t know what to tell you. Put literally anything on them. Just pick something from the fridge with your eyes closed. You have the power.
I prepped this 5 days ahead of time and used 2 smaller disposable loaf pans for a smaller yield. I used a mandoline and it really took no time to prep and get the sliced potatoes into the pans for baking. I was anticipating them coming apart to some degree during frying but it worked out fine. It was the first course for our Feast of the Seven Fishes and everyone loved it with creme fraiche and salmon caviar. This is another recipe I probably would not have tried without the video. I can't stress enough how much difference it makes to see the recipe made start to finish and get the visual cues I need to understand the recipe. Thanks again.
