Potato Gratin
Potato gratin is a wonderful dish that is easy to make. It is a good accompaniment for roast lamb or roast chicken, but is as delicious served on its own with a green salad.
- Prep
- 23 min
- Cook
- 55 min
- Total
- 1 hr 18 min
- Servings
- As written in source
- Difficulty
- Advanced
Timings are approximate — worked out from the method, not measured in a test kitchen.
Ingredients
Quantities are retained as written by the source and do not scale automatically. Tap an ingredient to check it off as you go.
Cooking instructions
Procedure
Preheat the oven to 400°F
Procedure
Slice the potatoes very thinly (about ⅛" thick), if possible using a mandoline to achieve evenness, and place them in some fresh water.
Procedure
Swish around the potatoes in the water to get rid of the starch, because that excess starch can make the dish a little unpleasant.
Procedure
Pour away the water and place the potatoes on a wooden surface. Then pat dry with a paper towel or kitchen towel, which is important because otherwise the remaining water will mix with the cream, causing curdling problems.
Procedure
Return the sliced potatoes to a bowl and add the cream and chopped garlic. Add a generous pinch of salt and some pepper.
Procedure
You can also add a few fresh herbs (thyme is particularly good) but this is up to you.
Procedure
Peel the zest of the lemon and add it to the mixture.
Procedure
Mix well, so the cream gives a good coating to all the potatoes.
Procedure
Pile the potatoes into a buttered, oven-proof dish. The size is if course difficult to gauge but the potatoes should not be layered more than about 4 thick.
Procedure
Grate a generous amount of cheese, and spread over the mixture.
Procedure
Pop it all into the oven and leave until the top layer of cheese and potatoes are brown and the cream is bubbling and running down the side of the dish. This will take about 40 minutes.
Procedure
For a final flourish before serving, grate a goodly amount of fresh nutmeg over the cheese.
Notes, tips, and variations
Some people tend to layer the potatoes in the heat proof bowl first and then pour the cream over. Some find this unreliable as the cream does not diffuse through all the layers, and the potatoes in a higgledy-piggledy pile in the bowl may be more attractive to some.
Notes, tips, and variations
Swiss Appenzeller cheese is also a good choice.
Photo: Dreamyshade · CC BY-SA 3.0 · https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 · Photo source and licence
Wikibooks contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ · Adapted; quantities retained as written. · Original source
Read it through first
Skim all 14 steps before you start — it is the difference between cooking and firefighting.
Scale it
Use the quantities listed in the original recipe. Adjust them manually if making a different batch size.
Storage
Cool completely, then keep in an airtight container in the fridge for up to three days.
Reheating
Reheat gently with a splash of water in a covered pan, rather than blasting it, so nothing dries out.
Approximate values per serving. Worked out from the ingredient list — treat them as a guide, not a measurement.
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