Yes, We Cook!

We’ve been getting CSA boxes so some of the stuff we get I don’t normally buy. Potatoes oddly enough is one of those items. I do make roasted potatoes for my husband from time to time–I love them too, but don’t eat much of them as they do not agree with my hypoglycemia. In any case, I do like them and when I saw Tina’s gratin I decided to do one with the potatoes we got.

I pretty much did my own thing as far as the recipe goes. Essentially I just made a very cheesy bechamel sauce that I poured over layers of potatoes and onions.

I actually cooked it another 20 minutes after I took this photo and it came out much more brown and lovely in the end.

Ingredients:

• 4 different sized and shaped potatoes sliced in thin rounds (uniformity is not common in CSA boxes)
• 1 very large red onion cut in thin half circles
• 1/4 cup flour of your choice
• 2 cups whole milk
• 2 tbls butter
• 2 cups shredded cheese of your liking (I used some sort of inexpensive organic cheddar but gruyere or something a little more interesting would be great!)
• salt and pepper to taste
• garlic powder

I oiled the bottom of an 8 x 8 baking pan and then put a layer of potatoes, followed by a layer of onions and repeated with a final layer of potatoes on top.

To make the bechamel I pretty much cheated. A proper bechamel starts with a roux and then you slowly add milk and then slowly heat that until it boils and thickens. I can’t stand very long so I heated the milk and the cheese until close to boiling on a relatively high flame and then I added a 1/4 cup of flour that had part of the total milk volume added into it to make a cold flour and milk mixture which I drizzled into the hot milk and cheese. Instant bechamel! The cheaters way. I’m learning to do a lot of things cutting corners and in general I’m not too disappointed. There is much I will gladly go back to doing the long way when I can, but frankly this cheaters bechamel was fine with me.

I poured the cheesy bechamel over the top and put it into a 350 degree oven. I’m not sure how long I cooked it. When I took the above photo it actually was not done and I ended up cooking it until it was a much more brown.

It was good. I’ve never made anything like this and I’m not sure if it compares to anything that is truly a gratin. What say you?

Related posts:

1. Bob’s Crash Hot Potatoes
2. Herbed Steak with Portobello Mushroom Sauce and Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes
3. Nantucket Bay Scallops and Eastham Turnip-Potato Gratin
4. Cream of mushroom soup
5. Roast Chicken and Potatoes

Tags: Potatoes

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 15th, 2009 at 12:52 am and is filed under Side Dishes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.