Lyon & Burgundy · Side
Gratin Dauphinois
- Intermediate
- 25 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, warm spice humming through the middle, melting away silken.
Ingredients
- 1.2 kg firm yellow potatoes
- 600 ml whole milk
- 300 ml double cream
- 1 fat garlic clove, halved
- 20 g butter
- 12 g fine salt
- 1 g nutmeg, freshly grated
- white pepper
Equipment
Mandoline · Grater / zester
The skills inside
Allergen screen
Found: dairy
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Slice the potatoes 3 mm thick on a mandoline and do not rinse or soak them; the starch clinging to the cut faces is the only binder in the dish.
- Rub the gratin dish hard with the cut garlic until the surface smells of it, then butter it heavily.
- Bring the milk, salt, nutmeg, pepper and the garlic halves to a simmer, add the slices and cook, moving them gently, until the milk has visibly thickened and coats the back of a spoon, about 10 min. 10 min
- Layer the slices flat and overlapping into the dish, pour over the thickened milk, then the cream, and press the top down until the liquid rises just level with the potatoes.
- Bake at 150C (300F) until a knife slides through with no resistance and the top is bronzed and set, about 1 h 15 min. Rest 20 min so it will cut. 60 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Reducing a sauce 95 recipes
- A steady simmer with the surface moving, never a rolling boil that throws it up the sides and scorches what is left on the base.
- Judged by behaviour rather than the clock: it coats the back of a spoon and holds a clean line when a finger is drawn through it.
- The drop in volume is visible against the side of the pan: there is a line to see, not a guess about whether anything has happened.
- Seasoned at the end and not the beginning, because salt concentrates at exactly the rate everything else does.
- Nothing is catching underneath: a spoon drawn across the base comes up clean, with no browned film building where the heat is fiercest.
Where it goes wrong It was seasoned at the start and then reduced by half. The salt concentrated along with everything else, so the sauce reaches perfect body and is too salty to serve. And the only remedy is to dilute it and reduce it all over again.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Grüner Veltliner
- Also Right
- Vermentino or dry Chenin
- From the Taps
- Saison
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling water with citrus & herbs
The vegetable whisperers: peppery, high-acid whites that flatter greens, roots, and grains without bullying them.
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