If you aren’t making gratins from scratch at home, sell your kitchen now because you obviously don’t know what ovens are used for in a civilized world. Eat takeaway food from polystyrene boxes the rest of your days and ponder your culinary sins over a pot noodle.
On yet another of my forays into the dark underworld of convenience food marketing, I saw a fancy foil pouch emblazoned with glorious photos of potato gratin. It was next to a curious product I’ve long championed, dehydrated potato flakes. Not because I like the concept of instant mash for which they’re designed – a pale substitute for the genuine fresh article – but rather for their use in some kitchen alchemy as crusts on veg burgers, easy potato bread, and a few other odd texture experiments over the years. They’re one of the few convenience products that has a single item ingredient list and while I’d never use them ~ as ~ potatoes, they have their uses elsewhere.
But it’s the evil spawn of the same potato companies that got me going this time. “Easy” potato gratin in a packet they said. Everything from bacon and cheddar to sour cream and chive flavours at your fingertips. What could possibly go wrong? Well one look at the directions and I knew the poor hapless consumers were doomed.
For starters, you have to provide your own milk or cream as part of the preparations along with a hefty knob of butter. Wait a minute. What exactly was inside this magical pouch if not some space age alternative to real cream and butter? Turns out it’s dehydrated potato slices and a small measure of convenience food industry flavourings. For three times the cost of actual potatoes only a few aisles to the left. Have people really become such lazy cooks that operating a knife is an alien a concept? Making gratin… out of anything… literally could not be simpler. And as I’ve said before, cheese does NOT come in a powder. Let alone bacon, chives, sour cream or any number of other delightful flavours to be had in the very same store trying to sell you the crap packets.
This brings up how to define gratin. Despite many beliefs to the contrary, a classic gratin is merely an interestingly crusty top formed on top of a shallow dish. You heard that right. It’s a technique more than an ingredient list. That could be parsnips, cauliflower, or some mixed garden riot of opportunity. That could be heaps of cheese folded in or Parmesan-laden breadcrumbs liberally scattered on top. Or that could be no more than simple potatoes in cream that have barely seen the pepper mill. A genuine Dauphinois is after all no more than thinly sliced potatoes baked in milk or cream with perhaps a touch of butter and Dijon in a dish that has flirted with a fresh clove of garlic in passing.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m the first to pile in Gruyere or make a bechamel laced with nutmeg to contribute to any gratin party you invite me to attend but simplicity should reign supreme and you certainly don’t need someone to distill it down into a dehydrated ready-pack. Because the slow even heat of the oven levels the playing field, even rank kitchen amateurs can succeed at gratin. Measuring is almost optional – just stop adding ingredients when the dish is full. Reasonable results can be had from frozen veg if that’s all you have available and the most basic potato and onion versions will still satisfy without resorting to convenience food trickery. Unless you’re in the most remote neighbourhoods of Murmansk in winter, I’ll wager you can always get fresh potatoes and onions for pennies. If you want other popular flavours of the modern gratin era, I suggest you cut chives from the garden or fry up some actual bacon rashers to add rather than some discount chemical imitator found in a tiny foil packet.
Basically, gratin as a technique is hard to screw up. Get yourself a shallow baking dish and a sharp knife and dive in with wild abandon. Cream, cheese, and potatoes are just the beginning.
Root Vegetable Gratin from Scratch
Clever readers will notice there are no measurements. You don’t need them. The size of your dish will determine the amounts. Just make sure it’s shallow so that as the liquid evaporates during baking the much sought after crusty top will form.
Potatoes, (Russet, Yukon Gold, Maris Piper. etc. but avoid more waxy varieties)
Parsnips
Swedes (aka Rutabagas)
Onions, any variety
Gruyere or similar melting cheese, grated coarsely or thinly sliced (optional… but delicious)
Unsalted butter
Cream, 10% or higher milk fat, to fill a gratin dish *
Fine sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Freshly grated nutmeg
Prepared Dijon mustard
* Determine how much liquid is needed by filling your dish one-third of the way full when empty. By the time you add the other ingredients, that should be just about the right amount with a small bit left over just in case it’s needed.
Fully preheat the oven to 205C (400F). Place a rimmed baking sheet on the lowest rack to catch spills and overflows.
Peel and slice the root vegetables in any ratio you desire. Even thicknesses help with even cooking. Layer the vegetables with small bits of butter and (optional) cheese in a shallow dish. Whisk together the remaining ingredients to taste and pour into the dish until two-thirds full between the slices of vegetables.
Cover the dish tightly with foil and bake for fifteen minutes. Remove the foil, rotate the dish, and reduce the heat to 175C (350F). Bake for an additional 20 – 40 minutes until most of the liquid has been absorbed and the vegetables are tender. Depending on the dish used, slightly more liquid can be added and baking extended if the vegetables are not quite tender enough when the original liquid has evaporated.
Serve piping hot and contemplate your next variation on the theme. Cauliflower with fresh dill and Parmesan bread crumbs is a personal favourite, especially when splashed with white wine and lemon.
