Filed under: By Main Ingredient, By Origin, Italian, Potatoes
When I was 14 years old, I came to France for three months. I lived in the North, which is not a very touristy location. It gets dark early in the winter, and it rains almost every day. Luckily, I had a warm and welcoming host family who gave me fluffy slippers to wear around the house, lent me a rain jacket when I realized I had left mine at home and, maybe most importantly, introduced me to a recipe for gratin dauphinoise.
Gratin dauphinoise is real winter food. It warms you up and keeps you full. Since leaving the North, I only make it on special occasions, usually at Christmas. I tinkered with the recipe a bit… mostly because I forgot some of it, and partly because I’m not so picky about peeling potatoes first. My version may not be 100% authentic, but it’s the one that my aunt and uncle beg for every year at the holidays.
Gratin Dauphinoise
5 or 6 large yukon gold potatoes, scrubbed and thinly sliced (Note: you can keep the potato slices in a bowlful of warm water with a squeeze of lemon while you slice them all, so that they don’t become brown.)
3 cups of grated swiss or emmental cheese
1/2 cup of grated gruyère cheese (Note: you can use all gruyère if you want to. It will bring the best flavor, however emmental or swiss are tasty as well, and not quite as expensive.)
1 egg
1 cup each whole milk and heavy cream
nutmeg, salt and pepper
Grease a glass baking dish with butter. Place one layer of potatoes along the bottom of the dish. Overlap slightly so that the entire bottom of the dish is covered. Sprinkle salt, pepper and nutmeg over the potato layer, and top with a layer of grated swiss cheese.
Follow with another layer of potatoes, this time sprinkling the layer just with black pepper. Continue alternating layers (potato, pepper and cheese) until you reach the last layer of potatoes. Sprinkle salt, pepper and nutmeg over the top layer of potatoes. Set aside, keeping the grated gruyère for later.
In a saucepan, heat the cream and milk together until hot but not boiling, and add another sprinkle of nutmeg. Temper the liquid with the egg, and pour the entire contents of the pan over the gratin. Top the gratin with the reserved cheese. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350 F until the potatoes are soft, about half an hour. Remove foil and turn up the oven to 425 F. Bake until the top layer of cheese is golden brown. Cool for half an hour before serving in order to make slicing easier.
Note: recipe can be prepared and baked at 350 and the last step can be reserved until just before serving.
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