Gratin Dauphinois
Potatoes, cream, garlic. No cheese — that is a different dish.
A gratin dauphinois is sliced potato baked in cream with garlic. There is no cheese in it: the browning on top comes from the cream itself, and adding gruyère makes it a different dish. Slicing the potato thinly and baking it long enough are the two things that decide the result.
Ingredients
- 1kg waxy potatoes
- 400ml cream
- 200ml milk
- 1 garlic clove
- Nutmeg, salt, pepper
- Butter
Method
- 1
Rub a dish with garlic and butter it well.
- 2
Slice the potatoes 3mm thin — do not rinse them, you need the starch.
- 3
Warm the cream and milk with nutmeg and salt.
- 4
Layer the potatoes, pouring over the cream as you go.
- 5
Bake at 160C for 75 minutes until a knife slides through and the top is bronzed.
A kilo of potatoes and a pot of cream feeds six.
The rest of the bistro plate
- Quiche Lorraine — The other French dish people wrongly add cheese to.
- Salade Lyonnaise — The salad that cuts through it.
The Bistro Ledger
The free recipes are the cooking. The guide is everything around it: what the menu is telling you, what the bill must show, and what the labels on the cheese counter legally mean.
The language, law and labels of the French table — with six bistro recipes to cook at home.
- Six French recipes with metric and US measures
- Regional food context across France
- Menu and ordering language
- Dining and consumer guidance — what service compris means, when a bill must be issued, how prices must be displayed
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