Gratin Dauphinois

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Tender, melt in the mouth, thinly sliced potatoes slowly cooked with cream, and milk and flavoured simply with garlic, salt and freshly ground black pepper. This rich, luscious, creamy, dreamy side dish needs nothing else although, I concede, some grated fresh nutmeg can be delicious.

Classically, Gratin Dauphinois doesn’t include cheese although, even some of the most famous classical french chefs, will add some – normally gruyère. The ‘cheese’ version is often confused with Gratin Savoyard, a very similar dish which includes cheese but the potatoes are cooked in stock rather than cream. All similar and all utterly delicious.

I confess that I use way more cream than most recipes I see. This is not a midweek dish for us, unless it is a special occasion. If I’m going to eat this heavenly, calorie loaded concoction then I go all out – I want my potatoes slowly cooked and swathed in this unctuous sauce rather than the potatoes absorbing it all! To that end I do replace around one third of the cream with milk but it is still very rich, utterly moreish and a wonderful winter accompaniment to red meat. Also, traditionally the cut side of a garlic clove is rubbed around the dish. I prefer more garlic flavour than that so actually include the cloves in with the cream. I recommend using between 2 – 4 cloves depending on how much garlic flavour you like.

I made this batch to eat with a Beef Wellington on Andrew’s birthday last week and I used 4 cloves of garlic.

How to make Gratin Dauphinois

Collect the ingredients together:

• butter for greasing the baking dish
• 1 kg peeled potatoes e.g. Maris Piper
• 650g double/heavy cream
• 350ml milk
• 2 – 4 large garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
• ½ teaspoon fine salt
• ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Make this delicious potato dish:

1. Thoroughly grease the baking dish with butter.
2. Thinly slice the potatoes, about the thickness of a £1 coin. I use a mandolin to do this – by far the quickest and easiest way.
3. Mix the cream, milk, crushed garlic and salt and pepper in a jug.
4. Lay half the potatoes evenly in the base of the dish.
5. Top with half the cream mix.
6. Lay the remaining half of the potatoes on top making a scalloped pattern with the final potatoes.
7. Pour over the remaining cream mix and cover with foil and cook in the oven for 60 minutes.
8. Take out of the oven, remove the foil and put back in the oven for around 20 – 30 minutes or until the potatoes are meltingly soft, and the top is a golden brown.

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