KITCHENALIA

THE MANDOLINE

Musical tastes apart, do you need a mandoline in the kitchen? The answer depends to some extent upon your style of cooking, since in equipping a kitchen it is important to consider whether every item is really required.

For the uninitiated, a kitchen mandoline is a terrifyingly sharp slicing blade held diagonally in a frame. Adjusting the blade housing varies the cutting thickness so that food, such as a raw potato, can be sliced as thinly as tissue paper or as thickly as a book of matches.

You might reckon that a good knife can achieve the same results. Yet even the most professional chef has difficulty in competing with the mandoline on its wafer-thin setting. Which is why most restaurant kitchens are equipped with this ingenious implement.

A century or so ago when cucumbers were a luxury, a diminutive slicer was devised that worked on the same principle as a mandoline. Handsome enough to be used at the dining table, an English Georgian cucumber slicer is now a collectable antique, though hardly suitable for today's working kitchen.

In New York in 1874 the "Clinton" was patented, recommended by the manufacturers: "For making Saratoga potato chips up to 14 inch thick." The machine was operated by hand and worked like a circular mandoline.

Today's equivalent of the Clinton is the bladed disc attachment fitted to a food processor, a device that I find invaluable for slicing citrus fruits for marmalade. However, for slicing smaller amounts such as a few potatoes or half a cucumber a mandoline is unequalled - and is simpler to wash afterwards.

There are two principal models available. The well-known Waefa manufactured in Switzerland has two blades - one flat, the other fluted. It costs pounds 24.80 at David Mellor (0171 730 4259). With this mandoline the vegetable has to be held in place with your hand, though, in view of the sharpness of the blade, I do not consider it cowardly to impale the vegetable on a fork, deftly turning it as the blade approaches the tines.

The second mandoline comes with a carbon-steel blade, held in a stainless- steel frame and is equipped with a plastic-handled holder for the food to be sliced - hence it does offer finger protection. Made in France, it is listed at pounds 129.95 at Divertimenti (0171 386 9911).

How a particular food is cut and sliced affects not only its taste - a fact keenly appreciated by the Japanese - but also its cooking time. Paper-thin slices of celeriac or swede, for instance, cook in a trice compared with their crudely-cut counterparts. And magnificently rich sliced potato dishes such as pommes de terre lyonnaises should be made with slender slices so that they cook quickly, otherwise the whole spirit of the dish is lost.

Mature Parmesan can be made into irresistible transparent shavings with the aid of a mandoline. While the astronomical price of fresh truffles makes a mandoline mandatory. And no true aficionado of the cucumber sandwich would be without this implement to achieve that heavenly conjunction of thin brown bread, tarragon-scented butter and slivers of peeled cucumber. Note though, that they should be made for serving immediately - limp cucumber sandwiches are singularly charmless.

POTATO GALETTES

Each thin disc of golden-brown potato makes a perfect base for flash- fried calves' liver, or for breast of chicken sauteed with ginger and leeks, then thinly sliced and arranged on top.

1 medium-sized potato per person

2-3 tablespoons sunflower oil for shallow frying

fine sea salt

grated nutmeg or black pepper or crushed garlic

Peel the potatoes and cut into 1mm (116in) thick slices on a mandoline. Heat a thin slick of oil in a 18-20cm (7-8in) heavy-based pan over medium to high heat. Make a layer of overlapping potato slices in the pan. Season lightly with salt and nutmeg or pepper - or some crushed garlic - and cover with another layer of sliced potato. As soon as the base of the galette is golden-brown, use a fish slice to turn it over and fry the other side. Each galette should take only three to four minutes to cook. Serve straight away while hot and crisp.