Potato pavé, cubes of layered and pressed together potato slices baked then wonderfully crispened in duck fat or oil are amazingly delicious and super elaborate.

Not your ordinary spuds
Potatoes pavé, pavé de pommes de terre, are showy, cheffy potatoes. They are not something you would want to whip up for a weeknight dinner, nor for an informal supper with friends. No: they are a restaurant dish, they are a diva of the spud world and they are insanely laborious to make.
So now I have put you off the recipe (ha ha – hope not!), I can explain what they are, why they are called thus and how to tackle the challenge of making them at home.
What does ‘pavé’ mean?
Pavé means paving stones or cobblestones, so the fancy dish is simply paving potatoes.
Although the appearance is somewhat redolent of paving slabs, I consider it a misnomer. The even stacks of potato slices pressed together would be better described, in my view, as ‘stacked potatoes’ or even ‘shingled’ rather than paved.
'Paved’ makes you think of a surface covered with slabs rather than stacks of them – or is it just me being pernickety and arguing with renowned French chefs? Which, as we might guess, you should never, ever do.
What is potato pavé?
Labelling aside, it’s a wonderful albeit impossibly intricate dish. It’s thin potato slices arranged in a dish in tight, overlapping (shingled, see?) layers, each brushed with melted butter. Those potatoes are baked until tender, then pressed down with another weighted dish.
They spend the night or at least a couple of hours in the fridge, to set and firm up.
The following day the stacked potato block is cut into cubes which are eventually fried on all sides until crisp and golden brown.
Pavé or dauphinoise?
All this slicing and stacking might rightly bring dauphinoise to your mind, so what’s the difference? Even though you might have considered potatoes dauphinoise a fancy dish above your pay grade, they are nothing compared to the pavé thing.
Dauphinoise are sliced and stacked in layers but merely baked in a creamy bechamel or cheese sauce. Spoon them onto your plate from the dish and tuck in. Clearly, compared to the pavé palaver (pa-la-vér, he he), they are a doddle.
Is potato pavé worth the bother?
That’s a good question, and I’m going to evade a direct answer. If you like a challenge, love potatoes and are looking for new ways to prepare them – by all means.
They turn out deliciously crisp on the outside, quite fluffy in the middle, a little bit like some super-sophisticated chips. Plus, they definitely give you a feeling of achievement, and there’s not much to go wrong provided you painstakingly layer them and brush with butter. It’s just an awful lot of work for one side dish.
First step: stacking and baking
I’d say first of all find a pair of oven dishes that you can stack, because once baked, the potato block must be pressed very firmly down. And the easiest way is to use another dish that will fit onto them, and can be weighed down with tins of baking beans.
But first things first: a kitchen mandolin is essential here to slice the spuds super thinly. They should be tossed with some cream so they don’t all stick together.
Next thing: layering them into a block. Line the dish with buttered parchment and arrange the potato slices in shingles or tiles, slightly overlapping, in even layers in the dish. Every couple of layers brush them with melted butter and season with salt and pepper. The depth you’ll be aiming to achieve is about 3 cm (1 ¼ inch).
This can now go off to the oven, covered with foil, for about an hour and a half. Prod them with a cake tester or a pointy knife – they’re ready when it goes in smoothly.
Second step: pressing and chilling
That second dish will come handy now, to press the baked spud block down.
If you absolutely don’t have a suitable dish, cover the potatoes with a double layer of parchment and foil and pour all your baking beans and coins over it. Add more weight in the shape of tins or other heavy objects and chill the whole thing in the fridge – best overnight.
Third step: cutting and frying
Once the potato block comes out of the fridge, the first issue is to get it out of the dish. It will need some prodding, pulling the parchment and running a knife around it to release it onto a chopping board. Any breakages can be trimmed off before cutting neat cubes of about three centimetres.
The fat for frying should have a high smoking point, so ghee or duck fat will be the best. Either way though, add a knoblet of butter to the frying pan at the very end, for the flavour.
The pavé can be browned all over, on all sides or leaving the top and bottom as it is. Be mindful: the first side takes four minutes to brown but each next will be shorter and shorter.
A sprinkling of sea salt flakes is the finishing touch, plus some finely chopped rosemary. And they need to be served piping hot!
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