Potatoes Dauphinoise

Name: Potatoes Dauphinoise - Gratin Dauphinois Recipe
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 1 h
Cuisine: French cuisine
Ingredients: Potatoes 6-8; Garlic 1-2 cloves; Cream (25-30%) 150 ml; Butter 1 tbsp; Hard cheese (Grana Padano, Gruyère, Emmental) 50 g; Salt, black pepper, nutmeg, thyme to taste

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Potatoes dauphinoise, or dauphine potatoes, is a delicious side dish and a famous classic of French cuisine, widespread around the world and made in many variations. In essence, it is a gratin: raw or pre-cooked potatoes baked in cream under a crust of hard cheese. In French cuisine the dish is called Gratin Dauphinois.

The history of this side dish begins much later than the discovery of the New World and the arrival of potatoes in Europe. The story goes that gratin dauphinois was first officially mentioned around 1788, at a festive dinner of the officials of the town of Gap, in Provence. Historically the town belongs to the Dauphiné region (Fr. Dauphiné) in the Alps, centered on the city of Grenoble.

Potatoes baked with cheese and cream or milk are well known around the world, especially in the USA and Canada. As a rule, potatoes dauphinoise are made from raw tubers, sliced thinly and then cooked in milk or cream. The dish is then baked under a cheese crust. Depending on the order of steps and the overall technique, very similar dishes can turn out quite different, but they are always delicious.

Among the known variations are baking already boiled (or baked) potatoes in cream, or cooking them in chicken broth. The dishes have different names, but the essence hardly changes. The flavor and consistency can vary considerably, as you wish. Quite a variety of additions can go in: anchovies, asparagus, onion and so on.

For this dish, choose potatoes with yellow rather than white flesh. Varieties like that, with dark pink skin, are easy to find here. They are fairly starchy and boil and bake well. In a side dish like this, starch is very important: it binds the potatoes with the cream and gives the dish the necessary density.

6 ingredientsTo the recipe

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Ingredients

4 servings

Potatoes 6-8
Garlic 1-2 cloves
Cream (25-30%) 150 ml
Butter 1 tbsp
Hard cheese (Grana Padano, Gruyère, Emmental) 50 g
Salt, black pepper, nutmeg, thyme to taste

Step-by-step recipe

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It’s best to make the dish from small, elongated tubers with yellow flesh. Elongated tubers are easier to cut into rounds, and the slices bake through better. Of the varieties available in shops, the best results come from pink-skinned potatoes. By the way, I was surprised that the price tag said “recommended for baking”, and the good people didn’t lie.
In most recipes the potatoes are not boiled beforehand, and baking in cream brings them to full doneness. Often the potatoes are first cooked in cream or broth, which makes a separate, very similar dish. For convenience, and to be sure the potatoes cook as they should, you can bake them in their skins beforehand by any available method.
It’s better to use cream rather than milk, which gives the dish a special pleasant, delicate flavor. The cream, of course, must be natural and rich. For extra flavor, garlic and aromatic spices go into the potato gratin. A good hard cheese is needed for the crust. Gruyère is usually used, but Emmental or even Grana Padano will do.
Peel the baked or boiled potatoes and slice them into rounds no thicker than 5-6 mm. Thinly sliced potatoes will most likely turn to mush in the oven, while thick slices won’t soak up the flavor of the cream. Lightly salt and pepper the slices, sprinkle with 1-2 pinches of dried thyme and a pinch of ground nutmeg. Add 1 or 2 finely chopped garlic cloves. Toss very gently, trying not to damage the slices.
Grease a glass or ceramic baking dish with butter. Arrange the slices in the dish by hand, loosely, standing them upright. Small gaps should remain between the slices.
Chop the remaining butter with a knife and scatter it over the potatoes. Pour rich cream over the vegetables, trying to fill all the gaps. Usually, with this amount of sliced potatoes and cream, the liquid barely reaches the middle of the dish. Often, especially if the potatoes are raw or very undercooked, they are covered with a mixture of cream and water or milk.
If the potatoes are raw, put them in the oven before sprinkling with cheese so that a crust can form. If they were baked beforehand, grate the cheese on a medium grater and sprinkle it straight over the potatoes in the dish.
Preheat the oven to 180°C and put the dish in to bake. It takes a while for the whole volume to heat through, so the total baking time can be up to 1 h. The potatoes need to soak up the cream well, as they say “bind”, so that the dish becomes more or less uniform. By the way, by the end of cooking all the cream blends with the potatoes and there is practically no liquid left. That’s how it should be. Go by the color of the cheese crust: a nicely golden crust is the sign the dish is ready.
Serve the hot potatoes dauphinoise in the same dish they were baked in. Be sure to lay a few sprigs of thyme on top. With a knife and fork or a small spatula, portion the side dish onto plates.
Serve the side dish hot. It goes very well with almost any fried or stewed meat dish. By and large, the taste of potatoes baked in cream is somewhat reminiscent of exquisite mashed potatoes with butter and milk.