Gratin Dauphinois

1 hour 30 minutes

to cook

Vegetarian

Home-made, straight from the oven, it is truly one of the great classics.

I know it does seem extravagant to use 5 fl oz (150 ml) cream for 1 lb (450 g) potatoes, but I would forego a pudding with cream once in a while in order to justify it. And although cheese is sometimes added to this, I think it masks the potato flavour too much.

This recipe is from Delia's Complete Cookery Course. Serves 3-4. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see questions Lindsey has answered on this recipe

method
Ingredients

Method

First, peel the potatoes and slice them very, very thinly (a wooden mandolin is excellent for this operation, if you have one), then plunge the potato slices into a bowl of cold water and swill them round and round to get rid of some of the starch.

Now dry them very thoroughly in a clean tea cloth. Then in the gratin dish arrange a layer of potato slices, a sprinkling of crushed garlic, pepper and salt and then another layer of potatoes and seasoning. Now mix the cream and milk together, pour it over the potatoes, sprinkle with a little freshly grated nutmeg, then add the butter in flecks over the surface and bake on the highest shelf in the oven for 1½ hours.

For Perfect Mashed Potatoes, watch Delia's Cookery School Video on this page