Pomme Gratin, or a favorite potato

Surprisingly, I have not shared one of my favorite potato recipes on my blog.  Always watching the carbs, we do not eat potatoes very often.  But when we do, it has to be something other than a plain old baked potato.  I am going to make it a really good, worthwhile potato.

Traveling in France, as we love to do, we have often run into a Pomme Gratin that has knocked our socks off.  Love, love, love the flavors of really good cheese, cream and potatoes together.  It is not the scalloped potatoes you grew up with as a child in the 50's.  There was definitely an American twist to that with cheddar and flour for thickening.  No, no, not necessary.

In 2003, we found a recipe we have followed since then.  It was on the Food Network and the recipe was courtesy Tyler Florence.  Right there you know we are in the right ballpark.

This recipe goes together simply, can be prepared ahead of the main course of your meal, and no one will turn up their noses.  I now see that Dorie Greenspan has an almost identical recipe in her cookbook "Around my French Table."  

Pomme Gratin or Potato Gratin
 recipe courtesy of Tyler Florence

1 1/2 cups heavy cream (Okay, use your own judgement.  You can use half n' half if you wish, but come on, do you really want to do that?)
1 sprig fresh thyme
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Butter
2 russet potatoes, peeled and sliced thin (I used my favorite Yukon Gold potatoes and sent them through my food processor.   I used about 1 1/4 pounds of potatoes.)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup grated Parmesan (Oh no...not I.  I used 1/2 cup of grated Gruyere)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  In a saucepan, heat up the cream with a sprig of thyme, chopped garlic and nutmeg.

While cream is heating up, butter a casserole dish.  Place a layer of potato in an overlapping pattern and season with salt and pepper.  Remove the cream from the heat, pour a little over the potatoes.  Top with some grated cheese.  Make 2 more layers.  Bake, uncovered for 45 minutes.

This potato dish will brown beautifully without broiling the top.  I do love Parmesan and we always have a large wedge in the refrigerator for grating onto salads, slicing for a side to a glass of red wine, but the Gruyere is just so much better in this dish. 

These potatoes go great with ham, roast beef or with lamb chops as I prepared them.  The recipe says it is for 4-6 people.  Sorry, I cannot claim that, because we do love them that much.

Sardalaise-Lyonnaise Potatoes

Several years ago, my brother asked me why he couldn't fry potatoes that tasted as good as our mother made.  I immediately knew the answer.  Mom would get rendered lard from the local meat market and she fried everything in it.  It definitely made fried food taste better.  The Trout and I eat very little fried food.  But when we do, we want it to be the best. 

My last posting talked about the wonderful goose confit we brought back from France.  The cassoulet we had was so good, but we were very excited about the goose fat that was in the can that I saved.  We knew we would have to have fried potatoes.

In France, chickens and ducks are roasted on a rotisserie and on the bottom of this large cooker potatoes are sliced and piled high.  The drippings from the poultry drip onto the potatoes and this makes the potatoes taste wonderful. 

I fried the Yukon Gold potatoes (I doubt any one of these potatoes has ever had a root in the Yukon) and added some sliced onions.  So not only did we have Sardalaise potatoes from the Dordogne where the ducks and geese are raised, but also Lyonnaise potatoes from the city of Lyon where they add onions to the potatoes.  They were outstanding.  





I want to share with you what the goose fat looks like.  It is almost perfect.  Creamy white and very pure.  We will be using every bit of it.  This fat also freezes nicely. 

Thank you for joining us on our journey in remembering some wonderful times in France.

The best potato dish

My photo is not the best, but I just had to share this wonderful potato dish. I found it on blogger friend, Cathy's blog, Wives with Knives. Cathy got the recipe from another blog I read, Moveable Feasts. I used a borrowed cast iron skillet from my neighbor since there wasn't one in the cabin. It was square, but I made it work. By the way, the second time I made it, the onions were browned a little more and it looked a lot better. Unfortunately, it disappeared before a photo opportunity.

This is so much easier than any scalloped potato dish, and I think it tastes so much better. Surprisingly, all the cheese that is used just kind of disappears into the potatoes to flavor them way over the top!!

Potato, Walla Walla Onion and Gruyere Galette

2 1/2 tablespoons butter
12 sprigs thyme
1 large sweet onion, sliced into 1/4 inch slices
3/4 to 1 pound waxy potatoes, peeled and sliced (I used Yukon Gold)
2 tablespoons oil
1 cup Gruyere, grated
1/2 cup mozzarella, grated
sea salt and cracked black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Melt the butter in a 9-10 inch frying pan over medium heat. (Cast iron works great). Add the thyme and onion and cook for 5 minutes. I did not turn over the slices of onions. Just browned them on one side. Place the potato, oil and Gruyere and mozzarella and salt and pepper into a bowl and toss to combine.

Top the onion mixture with the potato mixture and bake for 45 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through. Turn upside down on a large plate. Enjoy.