Pont Neuf and Bechamel....Showcasing Two New Techniques

June 16, 2020

The class has been waiting for me to not forget the potatoes! I have let them down the past few days, but not today. Today, with a little help from my students, I was able to cook for them. After researching different chopping techniques for vegetables, and my own cooking at home, I decided I would try something new. I don't know if you struggle with potatoes getting too mushy when you fry or saute them, but sometimes mine turn into a mushy mess. It made me think that maybe I was using too much butter, maybe I should use a little less oil, or possibly not slice the potatoes so thin. 

But, as I was researching, I learned about the Pont Neuf cut. This is specifically for potatoes. More specifically used for making steak fries, but I believe when cooking, any chop can be used....I am a novice! And I am learning new techniques.

Pont Neuf is used for fried potatoes ("thick cut" or "steak cut" chips). After the potatoes have been skinned and washed, cut your potatoes to 2cm x 7cm to create chunky chip shapes.

I am lucky to have a student who is completing his project on editing and recording, so I graciously asked him to help me with the process today. I think he did a fabulous job. 

We first needed to cut our potatoes:

   

We then sauteed the potatoes in a little butter, salt, pepper, and fresh garlic from our school garden. The garlic filled the room with such a great fragrance...and the students even learned about garlic too. 

   

Next, we made the Bechamel Sauce. What is a Bechamel? The French call the Bechamel sauce the “mother Sauce” because it has many other sauces that can be made from this base.

 

A Traditional Bechamel sauce is warm milk that has been whisked into a flour-butter roux. The sauce is then simmered with onion, cloves, bay leaf, and nutmeg until it is creamy and velvety smooth.

A Bechamel sauce can be changed into many different sauces. You can add different cheeses to make a Mornay sauce, which is what we are going to do today. We are going to add Swiss cheese and a little Havarti to give the sauce a rich, creamy texture….and this will be added to the potato! It will very close to an au gratin.

The Recipe that we used today was:

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon flour

1 cup milk

1 dash of nutmeg

1/2 cup of Swiss

In a sauce pan, melt your butter. Once the butter is melted, add the flour. This will create a roux. Something to remember, that I forgot, make sure that your milk is warm before adding to the roux. This will keep it smooth and lump free. You can use your whisk and get the mixture to be lump-free, it just takes a little more arm! Once you have the sauce to your liking, add the cheese and the nutmeg.

This is what we came up with today:

   

What would I change? 

I am not a big Swiss cheese fan, so the type of cheese would be my first. Possibly a Parmesan, or even a White Cheddar would have been a better choice. Also, with the amount of potato, we had too much sauce. So, finding a balance of sauce to potato would be helpful. But, I will say that the Pont Neuf cut of the potatoes was perfect and held up through the cooking and sauce. I will think about using this in the future when making skillet potatoes, because they were still firm and held their shape. 

I think the biggest critics were my students, who had nothing but good things to say about the cooking today. Although I think they are just being kind, so they will get fed again!

Happy cooking and learning!

Tracy