Wicked Tasty Harvest: Cozy Wintery Potatoes

by April Paffrath

I heart potatoes. We always eat the dish so fast I missed getting a photo—again!

I’m crazy about potatoes. Gratin potatoes, scalloped potatoes, pommes Anna, gratin dauphinois….Are you catching the theme? Creamy, creamy oven-baked potatoes that warm you inside and out.

The creamy starchiness seems to do something magical and transform a rainy dreary day into a cozy one. It elevates the mood (and also important health numbers if you don’t enjoy in moderation) and grounds any meal with its solid, hearty round flavors. Serve this with a steak and you might get actual applause. Eat it on its own an you’ve got a perfect winter snack. Have it alongside haricot verts and you’re having a Parisian moment worthy of Proust. The universe will smile.

When I was a young girl, my family created an adaptation of gratin dauphinois—I think the secret was the bacon. We’d slice it up into the 1980s Midwestern version of lardons and the dish was all we wanted when dinner was served. The bacon added the hefty salt that shows off the cream and the starch. Without it, the impressive flavors are lost to unctuous round tones. It’s no accident that I don’t have a single memory of what we ever served with the potatoes. When those made their way out of the oven and to the table, I had potato blinders on and my heart belonged to that single dish.

We made it back then by slicing potatoes and laying the slices in the pan, splayed out like a dealer's deck of cards. Then we poured on the heavy cream, added bacon and a few other toppings and put them in the oven for a long time. These days, I do it differently, more in keeping with French tradition and with less time in the oven.

When guests dig into these potatoes, most are surprised to find out there’s no cheese…just more cream than you should probably think about. (Quick! rainbows, unicorns, the Red Sox, happiness and peace on earth. Phew! Lalalalala....)

In this version, adapted both from the traditional method and Tom Colicchio’s Craft cookbook, you boil the sliced potatoes in the cream and then pop them into a hot oven with just enough of the cooking cream for finishing and browning. It works perfectly because you never end up with potatoes that are too dry, or too wet and therefore not creamy-lovely. You instead end up with creamy starchy lovely fantastic gratin potatoes at dinner. It’s practically no-fail.

Potato Gratin (adapted from tradition and Tom Colicchio's Craft)

4 or 5 medium potatoes—enough to fill a baking dish.
2-3 cloves garlic, peeled
a few springs of fresh thyme
a few pints of heavy cream
knob of butter to coat the baking dish
salt

Peel and slice the potatoes thinly 1/8-1/4 inch thick. Don’t worry about it too much, just be consistent.
Put the potatoes in a large pot.
Add the garlic and potatoes and a good pinch of salt.
Cover with cream by about 1/2 inch. It takes a lot of cream—not all of it goes into the final dish, so don’t panic. You’re cooking the potatoes in the cream, and only using some of the cream for the final baking. You’re paid off in flavor.
Put on to boil and reduce to a low boil/simmer.
When the potatoes are cooked but not falling apart yet (about 15 min based on how thick I cut mine and how high the heat is), take it off the heat.
Using a large slotted spoon, scoop the potatoes into a buttered baking dish. Try to keep the slices as intact as possible. Let's have a little pretty, shall we? Just don't go crazy—these potatoes are for eating.
When the potatoes have been settled in their new home, pour on some of the cooking cream. As Tom Colicchio says, you want to add enough that if you press lightly on the potatoes, the cream floods up where you’re pressing. Basically, don’t drown it, but leave plenty of cream there to bubble up as the dish finishes. It’s sort of like a potato-cream bog. Mmmm.
Pop it in a hot oven and let it bubble and bake until the top browns and the cream is thick and lovely. I just pick a temperature (400?) because the potatoes are already cooked and what you’re looking for is the browned flavor and the hot creamy casserole that gets everyone elbowing others out of their way.

Eat it with anything. You won’t remember what else you cooked anyway.

(cc) photo courtesy of cuorhome