Potato Gratin

There's a recipe for this French dish in every cookbook. So why am I bothering to reproduce it here? Well, partly because I'm nearing the end of my cabbage soup week and writing about potatoes and cream is as close as I can get to licking the fork, and partly because people just don't cook this delicious, inexpensive and non taxing recipe at home any more.

Here's my version, with a nod to the late, great Jane Grigson who recommends using the whites of three leeks in place of my Mayan sweets in her The Cooking of Normandy. The layering and baking is similar to the process in my September post, Amy's Sweet Potatoes.

Ingredients for 6

2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes
1/2 large Mayan sweet onion
2 ounces salted butter
1 cup home-made, concentrated chicken stock
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 small garlic clove
fresh parsley and thyme
salt and black pepper

Peel potatoes and slice them on a mandolin into a bowl of iced water. Slice the onion as finely as you can. Half garlic and rub cut halves vigorously around a shallow, ovenproof dish then butter it generously with some of the butter. Drain and dry the potatoes, mix them with the onion and layer into the dish, seasoning with salt, pepper, parsley and thyme, and finishing with an attractive layer of overlapping potato.

Mix stock and cream and pour over the dish to come just up to the top layer. Melt remaining butter and pour over the top of the dish. Bake in a slow oven, (325 degrees) increasing the temperature towards the end of the hour or more of cooking time, in order to brown the top and dry off any excess moisture.