Marquise Potatoes

Pommes Marquise (tomato-tinted piped potatoes) teach a blunt lesson: moisture decides whether a piped potato stands or slumps. The very red tomato purée must be reduced until a spatula leaves a clean track that stays open; only then can the croquette paste keep its tall grooves beneath an egg gilding. That reduction is the dish.

The original entry assumes a pound of croquette paste ready from the day's production, six ounces of reduced tomato purée maintained by a saucier, and a large grooved pipe waiting near a fierce service oven. At home, you cook one pan of potatoes, reduce an honest canned purée in a small saucepan, and use an open-star tip. The ratio remains exactly 1 lb (454 g) paste to 6 oz (170 g) reduction, but the batch becomes twelve generous pieces for four. The brigade's ready-made components are scaffolding and can go. The dry reduction, grooved piping, light gilding, and last-minute hot oven must stay.

They emerge russet-red with bronze tips, tender at the center and lightly crusted wherever the egg catches a ridge. No stockpot or mother sauce belongs here, and the broiler supplies a salamander's final flash only if your oven colors slowly. Before you pipe even one, weigh that finished tomato reduction and make certain it mounds rather than flows. That is the step that decides the tray.