[Corgi Man]

Marlene, a few months back, asked me to demonstrate the way I learned to put a potato gratin together in the French Regional Cooking class at ICE. Tonight was the first time I served one since then.

First thing I do is slice two small-medium onions and caramelize them. I grate about 6 oz of gruyére or Swiss. Then I peeled two large baking potatoes and on a hand mandoline sliced them in 1/8 inch slices.



The next step is to arrange a layer of potato slices counter-clockwise around the gratin dish. You overlap each slice in the middle. This way you have a double thickness all the way around. In the middle you interlock a layer going upwards.

Lightly salt and pepper the layer. Strew 1/4 of the caramelized onions over the layer. Sprinkle 1/6 of the grated cheese over the layer. Sprinkle 3 Tbs cream.

The next step is to arrange a layer of potato slices this time clockwise around the gratin dish. You overlap each slice in the middle. This way you have a double thickness all the way around. In the middle you interlock a layer going downwards.

Lightly salt and pepper the layer. Strew 1/4 of the caramelized onions over the layer. Sprinkle 1/6 of the grated cheese over the layer. Sprinkle 3 Tbs cream.

Do another layer of the counter-clockwise potatoes and the same spicing, onioning, cheesing and creaming.

Now we are at the 4th and final layer which you again lay like the 2nd layer in a clockwise direction. You salt and pepper, strew onions, sprinkle cream; then last this time you spread half the grated cheese over the top, then dot with tiny pieces of 3 Tbs of unsalted butter.

In a pre-heated 350 oven you bake covered in foil for 25 minutes. Take the foil off and bake 10 to 15 minutes more.

Sorry, I didn't photograph a slice for you to see the layers. Because of the half-slice overlapping, each layer was two potato slices deep, so by the time you're done layering four times you actually have 8 layers of potatoes.

I used 2 large russets, 6 to 8 oz Gruyére, two small-medium onions, 1 cup of cream. This filled a medium gratin dish and served 6 generously.

This post has been edited by Corgi Man: 13 May 2009 - 11:25 PM

[Marlene]

Skip, thanks for the demo. In the second photo, it looks like you've interlocked the middle layer first, and then gone around the outside clockwise?

[Corgi Man]

Marlene, on May 14 2009, 05:29 AM, said:

Skip, thanks for the demo. In the second photo, it looks like you've interlocked the middle layer first, and then gone around the outside clockwise?

I guess it does look like that, but I actually do the outside around the dish first and fill in the gap with the middle up or down.

[Dana]

Thanks for that, Skip, it looks really nice. I'm interested in the caramelized onions. I definitely am going to try this soom - maybe with the lamb loin.