Fondant Potatoes - The Best Potato Dish France Has Ever Made

For me, fondant is the best potato dish France has ever come up with, and it's the easiest, which is handy. Fondant potatoes (pommes fondantes "melting potatoes") are the dish nobody really puts on a menu anymore, but every chef knows. You cook the potato like a piece of meat: sear it, baste it in foaming butter, then braise it in stock until it's meltingly tender all the way through. In this video I'll show you exactly how it's done, plus the details that make or break it: Why you go waxy, never floury (Yukon Gold or Charlotte, floury spuds disintegrate) Why you should be BRAVE with colour: darker and softer beats pale and firm every time The pro move of matching your stock to whatever meat you're serving Why I skip the perfect cylinders and cut ovals instead, less waste, same result This is the kind of dish you can cook on a weeknight with whatever's in the fridge, but it tastes like something off my restaurant pass. Master this one and you'll never look at a potato the same way. Ingredients: 4 large firm and waxy potatoes 25ml (11 /2 tbsp) olive oil 125g butter, chopped 4 garlic cloves 6 thyme sprigs, plus more thyme leaves to serve 300ml stock, ideally to match what you are serving it with Sea salt flakes and fresh-cracked black pepper I'm Matthew Ryle — Executive Chef at Maison + Café François, London, and author of French Classics. This channel is where restaurant technique meets your home kitchen. My cookbook, French Classics, is available now — link in bio. Chapters: 0:00 Introduction 0:30 Cutting & Shaping the Potatoes 1:43 Searing the Potatoes 2:52 Butter, Garlic & Thyme 3:37 Adding Stock & the Cartouche 4:16 40 Minutes Later — Oven Results 5:06 Reducing the Sauce 5:25 Glazing & Plating 5:53 The Taste Test — 4 Potato Varieties Ranked