Gratin Dauphinois

 

Ingredients

  • 450 g good-quality potatoes (King Edward or Desirée 
  • 1 small clove garlic, crushed 
  • 150 ml double cream
  • 150 ml milk
  • freshly grated nutmeg
  • 25 g butter
  • salt and freshly milled black pepper
  • grated cheddar (optional)
 

Directions

  1. First, peel the potatoes and slice them very, very thinly (a wooden mandolin is excellent for this operation, if you have one).
  2. Plunge the potato slices into a bowl of cold water and swill them round and round to get rid of some of the starch.
  3. Now dry them very thoroughly in a clean tea cloth.
  4. Then in the gratin dish arrange a layer of potato slices, a sprinkling of crushed garlic, pepper and salt and then another layer of potatoes and seasoning.
  5. Now mix the cream and milk together, pour it over the potatoes, sprinkle with a little freshly grated nutmeg, then add the butter in flecks over the surface and bake on the highest shelf in the oven for 1½ hours.
  6. Oven temperature isgas mark 2, 150°C
  7. Sometimes, which seems to depend on the variety of potatoes, the slices of potatoes are a little crunchy so I prefer to cook them for a few minutes in the milk and cream mixture and add a few garlic cloves to add flavour.
  8. A layer of good grated cheddar on top and then melted also goes down well.