Potato gratin
One dish from our Christmas feast
After three full-on days of Christmas feasting and Helen’s birthday tomorrow, we ordered pizza for dinner. So tonight instead I’m sharing one of the dishes I made over Christmas.
We had zero social activities for the holidays so I cooked and baked for four days straight. It was glorious. Christmas Eve was fried chicken, mac’n’cheese, and coleslaw with a sticky toffee pudding. Christmas Day started with chicken and waffles (an accidental bonus to having fried chicken leftover from the night before), and finished with prime rib roast, potato gratin, and brussel sprouts and beans for dinner, and cranberry lime tart for dessert. Boxing Day was pork carnitas (I use David Chang’s brining and roasting technique from this recipe) with hot sauce, guacamole and coleslaw, and spicy apple pie with toffee whip cream to finish us off.
I wasn’t prepared to document the whole three-day feast, so you just get the gratin tonight ☺️. It’s been a go-to Christmas Eve or Christmas Day side dish in our house for 4 years now. It’s classic and delicious.
Original recipe:
Takes:
Husband: “The potatoes were sliced too thick. It was tasty. But it was really rich.”
Dana: “Visually, the dish suffered from a ‘lite’ approach, but overall texture and cheesy delicious taste was a smash!”
Helen (5 1/2 years old): “I think it was pretty good. A little too liquid-y. But otherwise good.”
Hector (3 1/2 years old): “I don’t want the potatoes! The potatoes are so yummy! I want more potatoes!”
What I used:
5 garlic cloves
Butter
2 shallots
1 1/2 cups whip cream / heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
1 tbsp salt
Pepper
Lot of fresh thyme
~ 4lbs russet potatoes
~1/2 cup Gruyere cheese
~1/4 cup sharp cheddar cheese
What I did:
Was in the zone/drinking wine and forgot to take photos 🤦♀️
Turned oven temperature to 325°F. Prime rib roast was already in there - cooked both dishes at the same time.
Sliced potatoes on mandolin.
Filled bowl full of potato slices with cold water to keep them from browning.
Put cream, milk, shallots, 4 garlic cloves, thyme, salt and pepper in small saucepan. Put on stove over medium-low heat. Brought to a gentle simmer.
Buttered Le Cruset Braiser dish. Rubbed remaining garlic clove all over buttered dish.
Watched cream mixture to make sure it didn’t boil over.
Arranged potatoes in dish in overlapping circular pattern. Made sure to cram in as many potato slices as I could.
After 15 minutes of simmering, used immersion blender to blend cream mixture together.
Poured cream over potatoes. Put lid on and put dish in the oven.
Baked for 75 minutes. Tasted a potato to make sure it was tender.
Grated cheese. Removed lid and spread grated cheese over top of potatoes.
Changed oven temperature to broil. Put dish on top rack and broiled for 5 minutes - until cheese was just brown.
Done! Sprinkled a few more fresh thyme leaves over top before serving.
Next time:
PK was giving me shit that we were eating like gluttons and that we had too many rich dishes so I subbed 1 cup of the cream for whole milk. IT WAS A HUGE MISTAKE! The dish had too much liquid and the cream/milk combo baked a bit weird (there were small curdles of milk on some of the potatoes). Next time I won’t listen to PK and I’ll make the dish exactly as the recipe says to! I’ve done this previously and it turned out amazing.
Make this in January on a Saturday or Sunday night. It’s exactly what we should be eating during our long, dark Canadian winter nights.
😋😋😋
-Ellisa