Thursday 9 July 2009

Recipe - Creamy Garlic Potato Gratins with a Rosemary twist


As side dishes go, this is one of my favourites. I think I can trace it back to something my parents use to cook now and then and it has evolved from there.

Depending on the mood I can add and subtract things to this recipe but what I'm listing here is the core recipe. Use this as a base and then freestyle it as you wish.

I think it's quite nice to cook and serve it in individual ramekins like this, but you can just as easily make one large dish if you want to. Just to give you an idea, the ramekins I used this time has a diameter of 10cm and holds about 350ml.

At first I thought that the only reason you should pour the milk and cream mixture over the potatoes even before putting them into the ramekins was to infuse flavour. It wasn't until quite late I realised that by doing that you stop the potatoes from discolouring.

When you cook this, if the gratins goes brown on top too early - just pop some tinfoil over them.

Let's head over to the recipe....

Ingredients (makes about 4 ramekins)
250 ml milk (go full-fat)
400 ml double cream
2 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed with the side of your knife
1 sprig of fresh rosemary
Salt
Pepper
4 large-ish potatoes (I used Desiree)

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180c.

Pour the milk and cream into a pan and add in the garlic cloves and rosemary. Season well and bring the pan to a simmer. Once it's simmering, turn off the heat and allow the mixture to cool down.

Peel the potatoes and either use a mandolin or a food processor to slice them into 2 - 4 mm slices. If you don't have any of the previous, use your knife and try to be quite exact.

Put the potato slices in a bowl and pour over the milk and cream mixture. Fish out the rosemary and garlic cloves. Give the bowl a good shake or two to make sure to cover all the potato slices.

Now you can start lining the ramekins with layers of potatoes. Spoon over a teaspoon or two of the milk and cream mixture for every two or so layer that you make. Keep doing this until you've used up all the potatoes. If there's anything left of the milk and cream mixture - divide it up evenly and pour it on top of the ramekins.

Put the ramekins onto a baking sheet and pop them into the oven for about 45 minutes. You should be able to push a knife into the gratins with no real resistance once they're cooked properly.

Enjoy!

2 comments:

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// Mike