Home › Vegetables › Potatoes Au Gratin
Potatoes Au Gratin
2 cups cold boiled potatoes 2 cups cream sauce 3 tablespoons grated cheese Salt and red pepper Buttered bread crumbs Slice the potatoes and add them to the hot cream sauce. Bring all to a boil; remove and add the cheese and seasoning. Pour all into a baking dish; sprinkle bread crumbs over the top and set in the oven to brown.
A straightforward leftover-potato gratin from the era when cream sauce was assumed knowledge. The only real decisions are the thickness of the sauce and how hot the oven runs.
- Cream sauceFryer's readers would have turned to a standard white sauce: 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons flour cooked together, then 2 cups milk or thin cream whisked in and simmered until it coats a spoon. Make it on the loose side, since the potatoes will absorb liquid in the oven.
- OvenNo temperature is given because the dish is already cooked and only needs browning. 400F for 20 to 25 minutes, or a few minutes under the broiler, gets the crumbs coloured without drying the sauce.
- Red pepperThis means cayenne, not paprika or a fresh chile. A pinch is the intent; it is there for warmth behind the cheese, not heat you can identify.
- The cheeseAdd it off the heat, as written. Three tablespoons of a dry aged cheese, grated fine, suits the dish e a sharp Cheddar or a dry Jack works. Boiling the sauce after the cheese goes in can make it grainy.
- Buttered bread crumbsFresh crumbs tossed with melted butter until each is coated, roughly 1/2 cup crumbs to 1 tablespoon butter. Dry packaged crumbs can scorch before they brown evenly.
- PotatoesCold boiled potatoes slice cleanly; warm ones crumble into the sauce. Waxy varieties hold their shape best here, and slices of about a quarter inch keep the layers distinct.
- YieldFour servings as a side dish. The potatoes and sauce come to about a quart, so use a dish a little larger than that; spread it no more than two inches deep so the crumb crust is a fair share of each portion.
Gratin is French kitchen vocabulary that entered American household cookery in part through the cooking-school teachers of the late nineteenth century; the word refers to the browned crust rather than to cheese, though cheese versions came to dominate in English-speaking kitchens. What makes this a period piece is its starting point: two cups of cold boiled potatoes, the residue of an earlier meal. Cookbooks of this generation commonly gave whole chapters to reheated food, and a white sauce with a little cheese and a crumb top was a standard method for making yesterday's vegetables presentable at today's table. The loose-leaf format of Fryer's book belongs to the same practical spirit.