This year, I’ve really enjoyed the Christmas or winter brews that are available.  I’ve always been partial to English ales, and Ridgeway does a series of ales each year for Christmas that are great.

I first had a Insanely Bad Elf, which was a nice red ale with a bit of spice.  I also had a Criminally Bad Elf, which I loved, that was a barleywine style ale.  I didn’t get their Lump of Coal Stout this year, but it’s very good, and they added a porter (or I hadn’t seen it before) called Santa’s Butt, which I also didn’t get.  What I bought as much of as I could was Bad Elf, which is my favorite of all of them.  Very drinkable, and it’s only available this time of the year.  As far as I know, I got the last 5 bottles in Dayton, Ohio!

On to more Christmas dinner stuff…

As I said last time, Christmas dinner was inspired mainly by Tyler Florence and Ann Burrell. The Ann Burrell part, though, was also influenced by a recipe I used in Gourmet Magazine around 15 years ago. Ann B. calls these Pommes Chef Ann; I call it potato torte, or my nephew-in-law, Jud, called it potato pizza.

The ingredients are pretty simple:

• 3-4 russet potatoes, scrubbed but not skinned
• Olive oil
• Fresh rosemary, chopped… About 2 tablespoons
• Grey salt
• Ground black pepper

Ann B. uses no rosemary, and she adds some grated Parmesan cheese. Not a bad way to go, either!

I did these on the XL Big Green Egg, but they can also be done in the oven. Preheat to 425 F, and things will be all set (or set the BGE up with a platesetter at 425 F.

I generously buttered a 10″ nonstick skillet (use 8″ and fewer potatoes if desired), then used a V slicer (my poor man’s version of a mandolin) set for thin slices to slice the potatoes. To keep them from browning too much, I sliced a potato then put the slices in the skillet before slicing the next potato.

The bottom layer of potatoes will end up being the top of the torte, so I tried to lay them out with a nice pattern. After one layer was down, I brushed that layer with olive oil, then salted and peppered it, and added about half the rosemary. I then added another layer, brushed with oil, salted, peppered, and so on. I only put the rosemary between 2 layers, so as not to overpower the potatoes, but I did a total of about 7 layers of potatoes.

Once the layers were all ready, I put the skillet on the stove over a med-high flame, until the potatoes were sizzling nicely. This is to help brown the potatoes. One of the things I like about Ann Burrell is her love of brown food… Brown food has flavor!

Once the potatoes were making some good sizzling sounds, the skillet went in the oven for about 10 minutes. Then I drained off any excess oil (VERY, VERY IMPORTANT), and flipped the potatoes over onto a plate. Then I slid the potatoes right back in, but upside down. This is why the top layer needed to be well laid-out.

The skillet went back into the oven again for about 20-25 minutes, then the whole torte went back onto the plate to serve.

The result is a really nicely layered potato torte with a crunchy outside and tender inside. It’s pretty easy, and a nice addition to the Beef Wellington we had on Christmas. Thanks Ann B.!

My last, for now, word on Ann Burrell… I’ve read some websites where people have disparaged her show, Secrets of a Restaurant Chef. You may know her better from her appearances as Mario Batalle’s sous chef on Iron Chef America, though. I wasn’t sure what I thought of her on the new show at first, but I liked what she was doing. She wipes the scraps onto the floor like she might at a restaurant, but I’m not going to do that at home! She growls out words for emphasis a bit too much. She waves her arms around a bit, and she talks a lot. But the more I watch her, the more I tend to liker personality. Even before that, I liked that she’s really showing home cooks how to do things like a restaurant chef would do them. That’s the heart of the show… Give her a chance to show that, and you may find that you start liking her more and more, too.

This post is tagged