Monday, March 7th 2011 - Mushroom and Potato Gratin

Recipe: http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/04/simple-potato-gratin/


3 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces, plus an additional pat for buttering gratin dish
1/2 pound mushrooms
4 large yellow potatoes* (about 1 1/2 pounds), peeled
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup milk, half-and-half or cream (if using something richer than milk, you can skip the butter)
2 ounces cheese, grated or crumbled (Parmesan or Gruyere are the classics, but that doesn’t mean that goat cheese, blue cheese or any of your favorites won’t work as well) [optional]

Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease a 9- by 12-inch gratin dish with the pat of butter. Slice the potatoes as thinly as you can (a mandoline works great for this) and arrange them in a layer, overlapping the edges slightly like shingles. Sprinkle the potatoes with salt and freshly ground pepper and don’t be stingy — this is where the bulk of your flavor comes from and a third of the cheese before before repeating this process with your remaining potato slices. (If you are using a sauteed vegetable filling, this is where you’d want to add half of it.) Depending on how thinly sliced your potatoes are, you should end up with approximately three layers, with a third of the cheese between each layer. Reserve the last third of your cheese for later.

Carefully pour the milk over the potatoes. It should come up to the bottom of the top layer of potatoes; add more if this was not enough. Dot the top of the gratin with the three tablespoons of butter and bake it for about an hour. Halfway through the baking time, take the gratin dish out of the oven and gental press the potatoes flat with a spatula to keep the top moist. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top of the gratin for the last 15 minutes of baking. The gratin is done when the potatoes are soft and the top is golden brown.



Changes:  It's been a whole week so I don't remember the details, but I did use whole milk.  I used used slices of Brie instead of the cheese recommended.


The consistency of the gratin was better this time, but still not what we are used to.  Maybe I should try using cream in this recipe.  Also, the Brie just doesn't really work though I like the flavor.  I think slices of cheese are beter, but I should try grated next time since more of it can get spread around.  I thought the mushrooms were good.