Friday, November 19, 2010

Gruyere Potato Gratin

Potatoes... cheese... cream....baked heavenly goodness.....

I am torn about how I feel about this recipe - while it was really good, I feel like the cheese "sweats" too much, causing a very runny consistency and inability for the cheese to fully blend with the cream. Or maybe it was too much chicken stock. I took this recipe from my America's Test kitchen cookbook, for 330 calories. If I did it over again, I would decrease the chicken stock by at least half and possibly 1/4 cup of the white wine, though this recipe is posted based on the exact way I made it.

Grocery List:
- 2 tbsp of butter
- 1 medium onion, minced
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tbs. fresh thyme leaves, minced
- 2 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. black pepper
- 1/2 cup dry white wine
- 1 1/2 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
- 1 1/2 cup heavy cream or half & half
- 3 bay leves
- 3 russet potatoes, peeled
- 6 oz. Gruyere cheese, shredded (about 1 cup)
- Fresh cut chives (for garnish)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Slice your potatoes 1/8-inch thick.


As I had mentioned previously, I've been in the market for a dutch oven. Well, another sale at World Market and I caved to purchase my new 5-quart dutch oven, ta-da!


The recipe just so happened to call for one, so this worked out quite nice. Melt the butter in a pot or a dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook until the onions are softened, lightly browned. Add the garlic, thyme, salt and pepper. Cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.


Add the wine, scrape up any browned bits on the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Cook until most of the wine is evaporated, 3-5 minutes.


Add the chicken broth, cream and bay leaves. Stir in half of the gruyere cheese.


Line the baking dish with 3 layers of potato, discard the bay leaves, then pour 3/4 of the cheese-cream mixture over top. Add an additional layer of potato slices and top with the additional sauce.



You can see how runny the mixture is, but it does help cook and soften the potato slices.





Sprinkle the cheese over the potatoes and cover with aluminum foil. Cook in the oven for 30 minutes.




Take the aluminum foil off and add the chives to the top, bake for another 10 minutes or until top is golden brown.


Remove from the oven and let sit for about 10 minutes for sauce to thicken, then serve.




Served with maple-cider glazed pork tenderloin.

2 comments:

  1. i have a similar recipe and thought the same thing, maybe a little flour in the cream would be a thickener. Hmm, maybe I should try that, anne

    ReplyDelete
  2. The funny thing is that I had flour out on the counter and I overlooked it. If you try it, let me know how it goes!

    ReplyDelete

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