This duchess potato recipe makes a lovely and beautiful side dish. Each little mound is tender and fluffy on the inside, and buttery and crispy on the outside.
4large Russet potatoespeeled and diced (3-4 pounds)
1tablespoonkosher saltfor potato water
4T.salted butter
½cupheavy cream
½teaspoonwhite pepper
Additional saltto taste
6egg yolks
Instructions
Preheat oven to 425°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
Peel and chop potatoes into pieces. Place potatoes in a pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, adding 1 tablespoon of kosher salt to the water, and cook until potatoes pierce easily with a fork.
Strain potatoes and allow them to cool for 5-10 minutes.
Press potato chunks through a ricer to finely mash them.
Stir in butter, heavy cream, white pepper, and additional salt to taste. If the potatoes are still hot, allow to cool until they are about room temperature.
Stir in one egg yolk at a time, until 6 egg yolks are evenly mixed into the potato mixture.
Transfer the potato mixture to a large piping bag fit with an open star tip (I use tip #1M). Pipe tall mounds of potato onto the prepared baking sheet. The potatoes will not spread like a cookie might, so you can place the mounds close together.
Bake for 16-20 minutes or until the mounds are golden brown across the top.
Brush with additional melted butter and sprinkle with flaked salt (like Madon’s) and finely chopped parsley, if desired.
Notes
Storage: Store, covered, for 4-5 days in the refrigerator.Notes: Yukon Gold potatoes work really well in this recipe also.Salt the potato water well so that the seasoning is really infused into the potatoes. Taste the mashed potato mixture after adding everything but before you mix in the egg yolks so that you can adjust the seasonings further if needed.Use a ricer for super smooth mashed potatoes. If you don’t have a ricer, mash the potatoes really well as you don’t want any lumps to clog the piping tip when you’re piping out your mounds.As long as the potatoes are at room temperature when piping into mounds, they can go right into the oven. If they are especially warm, they may puddle when placed in the oven. If you have trouble, chill the pans of potatoes before baking. I didn’t find much difference between room temp and cooled potatoes other than maybe a few extra seconds in the oven.Cool the potatoes before adding the egg yolks so that you don’t end up with scrambled yolks in your potatoes.There are a variety of recipes that will brush the piped potatoes with either an egg wash or melted butter before baking. I saw no difference in the finished look or taste of the potatoes when doing this and I also found it tedious to brush the piped potatoes (even when chilled) without crushing the delicate piped edges. My favorite method was to brush the duchess potatoes with melted butter once they came out of the oven and then sprinkle them with a bit of salt.You can also spread the potato mixture into a shallow casserole dish and create a pattern across the top with a fork. Bake until golden for duchess potato casserole.