In the comfort zone
While winter in Southern California is short on blizzards and subzero temperatures, it does have plenty of chilly winds and rainy days. When they hit, there’s only one thing to do: Grab a chair by the fire and pick up a good book -- preferably one with lots of gratins in it.
Basically nothing more than vegetables and cream baked together until they fuse into one, gratins couldn’t be easier to make, which is certainly not to say that they lack complexity. The vegetable soaks up the liquid to the point that it becomes meltingly tender. The cream takes the essence of the vegetable and enriches it. And the crusty layer on top combines the best of both and gilds it a lovely brown, adding a slight crispness and a deeply satisfying flavor.
No wonder the dish is so beloved. And while it seems impossible that something so simple and so delicious could be an object of controversy, you know how cookbook writers can be. When it comes to gratins, nobody agrees on anything.
Edouard de Pomiane, one of the great mid-century French culinary writers, was speaking of gratins when he wrote, “There are certain dishes the very name of which always arouses a storm.”
In “Cooking With Pomiane,” first published in the 1930s, he describes being served a gratin dauphinois -- the archetypal potato gratin -- at a dinner of the Academie des Gastronomes. The dish was a flop. “Gravely, three members of the Academie des Gastronomes rose to their feet and gave their opinion on the way a gratin should be made.” Though they all agreed that the gratin served was horrible, predictably, they differed on how it should have been done.
De Pomiane’s version is a model of simplicity. Slice 1 1/2 pounds of potatoes very thin. Mince four cloves of garlic. Cover the bottom of a baking dish with half of the potatoes. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and half of the garlic. Top with the remaining potatoes and season again. Bring 1 1/2 cups of milk to a simmer and pour it over the potatoes. Mix two-thirds cup of whipping cream with one-half teaspoon of flour and pour that over the potatoes. Bake at 400 degrees until brown, about an hour.
Roy Andries de Groot disagreed. In his cult favorite book “The Auberge of the Flowering Hearth,” which romantically recounts his stay at the perfect small hotel in the French Alps, his gratin differs from De Pomiane’s on almost every important count. First, he precooks the sliced potatoes in the milk on top of the stove. Then he bakes them at a much lower temperature (300 degrees) in a covered casserole set in a water bath.
Madeleine Kamman, whose family has roots in the same area, devotes an entire chapter to gratins in her book on the Savoie. She seconds De Groot’s low-heat technique but rejects everything else. Her version in the new edition of “The Making of a Cook” is perfect in its way: Rub a gratin dish with garlic and butter it well. Slice 1 1/2 pounds of potatoes very thin. Toss them with salt, pepper and nutmeg and arrange them in the pan. Cover with 1 1/2 cups of whipping cream and bake at 325 degrees until brown, about 1 1/2 hours (she also provides the great tip that you should periodically break the crust that forms and submerge it in the unbrowned cream).
The noted American expatriate author Richard Olney comes down in De Pomiane’s camp in almost every respect. Indeed, his recipe in “Simple French Food” is virtually identical, with the exception that he brings the potatoes and milk to a simmer together in a baking dish on top of the stove before sticking it in the oven.
As with anything so simple, variations are legion.
Poach the potatoes in stock instead of milk before adding the cream and your gratin is a “Savoyard.” That’s just the start. Kamman includes half a dozen twists on the basic potato gratin in “The Making of a Cook,” including adding mushrooms, blue cheese, minced onions, leeks, celeriac, fennel and mustard (separately, not together).
One of my favorite gratins is made with potatoes and turnips, kind of a glorified version of the Scottish “Neeps and Tatties.” Bake two sliced turnips and six sliced potatoes in a covered gratin dish in a 450-degree oven until they begin to soften. Cover them with 1 1/2 cups of cream, scatter over a couple of ounces of grated Gruyere and bake until brown.
Some advise specific baking dishes (De Pomiane requires round: “For some reason an oblong dish is not considered quite right”). Some advise that you must rinse the potato slices thoroughly and then pat them dry to rid them of extra moisture. Others say just to pat them dry. Finally, there are those who ignore that step altogether.
Some authors specify boiling potatoes, others baking. Theoretically, this should be an important distinction, but I tested them side by side and have to confess that I couldn’t find a difference.
But gratins don’t even need to contain potatoes at all. The charm of the dish lies as much in the deep flavor of cooked cream as it does in the comforting heft of starch. Actually, the name itself, derived from the French verb gratter (the same root as the English “to grate”), refers to the browned bits of butter crust that appear on top.
Indeed, after a couple of weeks of cooking gratins of various stripes, I’m thinking about trying out a new one: the air gratin, made with nothing but heavy cream slowly baked until it is brown and delicious.
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Sweet potato gratin
Total time: 1 hour, 20 minutes
Servings: 6 to 8
3 pounds (about 3 large) dark orange sweet potatoes
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 cup whipping cream
2 tablespoons creme fraiche
1/2 cup grated Gruyere cheese
1 tablespoon butter, cut into small pieces
1. Select potatoes that are as similar in size and as evenly cylindrical as possible. Put them on a baking sheet in a cold oven and turn the oven to 400 degrees. Bake until tender but not soft, about 50 to 55 minutes. The potatoes should be easy to penetrate with a knife, but not mushy.
2. Remove the potatoes and set them aside until they are cool enough to handle. Meanwhile, butter an 8-inch-square earthenware, glass or enameled cast-iron baking dish.
3. Trim away the pointed ends of the potatoes and remove the peel, taking care to keep the flesh intact. Cut in roughly one-fourth-inch to one-third-inch slices and arrange the slices in a single, overlapping layer in the baking dish. Use the smallest slices in the back row (it will be mostly covered) and to fill in spaces. Season with salt and a generous amount of freshly ground black pepper.
4. Beat together the whipping cream and creme fraiche until smooth, about 45 seconds, and drizzle it evenly over the top of the potatoes. There should be enough cream to come halfway up the potatoes, but not so much that they’re swimming in it. Scatter the Gruyere over the top and dot with butter.
5. Bake until the cheese is melted and the cream is bubbling and golden, 15 to 20 minutes. Serve immediately.
Each of 8 servings: 262 calories; 5 grams protein; 26 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams fiber; 16 grams fat; 10 grams saturated fat; 55 mg. cholesterol; 200 mg. sodium.
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Belgian endive gratin
Total time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Servings: 6
Note: I learned the technique for this topping from Roger Verge’s “Vegetables in the French Style.” It will adapt nicely for other gratins.
1 to 1 1/4 pounds Belgian endive (6 medium or 4 large)
1/4teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt, divided
1/3cup white wine
2 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
1/2cup whipping cream
1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
1/4cup plus 2 tablespoons toasted chopped walnuts
1. Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Remove any discolored outer leaves and the brown bases from the endive heads. Cut the heads in half lengthwise or in quarters if they are very thick.
2. Generously butter an 11- by 7-inch baking dish. Arrange the endive in the baking dish in two overlapping layers. Sprinkle with sugar, season with one-half teaspoon salt, add the wine and dot with butter. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake until the endive is tender, about 30 minutes.
3. Remove the foil and return the baking dish to the oven. Bake until the liquid has mostly evaporated and the endive is beginning to brown, about 15 to 20 minutes.
4. In the meantime, whip the cream to soft peaks then stir in the egg yolk. Add one-fourth teaspoon salt. When the endive is browned, pour the whipping cream mixture over the top, distributing it evenly. Scatter one-fourth cup walnuts evenly over the top. Bake until the topping is puffed and golden, about 15 to 17 minutes.
5. To serve, sprinkle the remaining 2 tablespoons walnuts on top and serve immediately.
Each serving: 227 calories; 3 grams protein; 5 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams fiber; 21 grams fat; 10 grams saturated fat; 85 mg. cholesterol; 324 mg. Sodium
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Gratin of potatoes, leeks and mushrooms
Total time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Servings: 6
1 tablespoon butter
2 to 3 leeks, white part only, chopped (about 3/4 cup)
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1 shallot, minced
3/4 teaspoon salt, divided
1 1/2pounds potatoes, peeled
3/4cup grated Gruyere cheese
1 1/4cups milk
2/3cup cream
1. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the leeks and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and shallot and reduce the heat to low. Cook until the mushrooms begin to darken and give off their moisture, another 5 minutes. Season with one-half teaspoon salt.
2. Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Generously butter a heavy 11- by 7-inch baking dish.
3. Slice the potatoes very thin and pat them dry with a kitchen towel. Arrange half of the potatoes in a rough layer in the baking dish, then distribute the leek and mushroom mixture over the top. Scatter half the grated cheese over that and season with one-fourth teaspoon salt. Top with the remaining potatoes in as solid a layer as possible. Scatter the remaining cheese on top.
4. Heat the milk just to a simmer in a small saucepan and pour it over the potatoes. You should just barely be able to see milk under the top layer. Pour the cream over the top and bake.
5. After 30 minutes, the cream-milk mixture should be puffed and bubbling and beginning to brown. The potatoes should be starting to become tender. Bake until the top is thoroughly browned, the milk bubbles have subsided and the gratin is a compact mass, another 30 to 35 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve at once.
Each of 6 servings: 310 calories; 9 grams protein; 28 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams fiber; 19 grams fat; 11 grams saturated fat; 65 mg. cholesterol; 385 mg. sodium.
