Ah, fall. A certain crispness in the air. A time to excavate your sweaters and examine for moth damage. A time to stop worrying about cooling bills and start contemplating heating bills. A time to choke back your revulsion at all the pumpkin-spiced-everything sponcon that ruins any online reading experience, or maybe that’s just me. And a time to start eating all the cheese and potatoes. All of them.
NOTE: The following recipe is very simple but it’s one of the most labor-intensive and time-consuming of any that I make regularly. Still I persist. There are two more that are also simple, quicker, and require less physical effort.
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8 or 9 medium-size russet potatoes. Those are the potatoes you’re probably the most familiar with, they’re brownish, they’re the platonic ideal of the postwar American potato. Don’t use more small ones, you’ll only make more work for yourself. Don’t use the huge ones because you need gaps for the sauce.
1 stick butter, but you’ll only be using about 1/2.
3 or 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped. If you have a garlic press use that. You want the garlic to be really small.
2 1/2 cups whipping cream. You can use milk but the richer the cream the better. When it comes to baking with liquid dairy, it can never be too rich or too fat.
12 oz. Gruyère cheese, straight from the fridge. You want it to be firm.
6 oz. Parmesan cheese.
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Wash and peel your potatoes. Slice into 1/8”-thick spheres. OR, and I can’t recommend this enough, get out your mandoline. Every kitchen should have one. Mine was not expensive and looks like a doll slide with a lethal blade in the middle. Cut your potatoes in half, fit each one with the cap/guard, and slice down, come back up, down, and repeat. Place the mandolin so that the taller side faces you and you’re sliding the potatoes away from you, not in a back-and-forth horizontal motion. Bitter experience has taught me this trick.
As your potato slices accumulate under your mandoline/death slide, put them in a bowl. Some recipes recommend putting them in a bowl of cold water to prevent from browning but I don’t. They’re baking in a sauce, who will know? And then if you do this you have to pat them dry to get rid of the water, risking cloth/paper towel lint, and…no, just no.
Grate your cheese, both gruyère and parmesan. I told you this was labor intensive.
Make a sauce. At the very least heat up 3 tbs. of the butter, the cream, and the garlic. You can either add 10 of your 12 oz. of Gruyère and 4 of your 6 oz. of Parmesan or save it. See note below. I mix it all together to make a nice, cheesy sauce. 4 oz. is 1/2 cup, 10 is 1 1/4, so use a measuring cup if you can’t eyeball this. In any event you want some cheese left behind.
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Get out a 9 X 13 baking dish. Rub it all around with your stick of butter.
Arrange some of your potato hoard on the bottom in a slightly overlapping pattern. Pour on some of your cream sauce and, if you didn’t add the cheese to the sauce, sprinkle some of that on top. Try to judge how many potatoes you used. If you used up about half, use half the sauce/cheese. If 1/3, use 1/3. For me it usually ends up being half but sometimes I am surprised.
Do this once or twice more, so two or three layers. Then, sprinkle the remaining gruyère and parmesan on top, BECAUSE TOO MUCH CHEESE IS NEVER ENOUGH. Sorry, lactose-intolerant friends.
Cover the whole thing in tin foil and put it in the oven for about an hour. For me it takes slightly less time. Then, uncover it and leave it in for maybe another 20 minutes. You’ll know it’s done when all that cheese on top is gooey and everything looks browned but not burned.
NOTE: If you don’t put the cheese in the cream you can also sprinkle it between the potato layers and then pour all the cream sauce on top, making sure it sinks in evenly. I don’t prefer this but I’ve done it, and it was fine.
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What Would The Pioneer Woman Do?
I don’t live on The Pioneer and am not a woman/one of the largest private landowners on earth. Nonetheless, I love the Pioneer Woman because when I first moved to this apartment it was new and beautiful and the kitchen was enviable, so what to do with this? Why, have people over and cook for them! Her TV show was my inspiration. She’s always cooking for “the men.” I caught one episode where she’s in a truck and she talks about meal planning, because the nearest supermarket was like 100 miles away. Of course it was, because the family she married into owned all the land and that supermarket was probably on the edge of her property.
Here, without shame, I present an abbreviated version of her Potatoes au Gratin. I hope I’m not violating copyright. I don’t think so, it’s credited and online for all the world to see.
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4 russet potatoes
2 tbs. butter
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup whole milk
2 tbs. flour
4 cloves garlic, minced*
1 tsp salt
Pepper, “to taste”
1 cup freshly grated cheddar cheese
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Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Butter a baking dish.
Here is the genius of the recipe. Don’t peel the potatoes, just slice them, fairly thick, stack them, and quarter them. If you’ve ever made hash browns you’ve probably done this.
In a bowl, whisk together everything else except for the cheddar cheese.
In your baking dish, place 1/3 of the potatoes, 1/3 of your whisked sauce, and repeat twice.
Cover with tin foil and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake for 20 more minutes. Add the grated cheddar cheese on top and bake another 3—5 minutes, until it’s melted. Let sit for a few minutes, so that it thickens.
- She warns her fans/viewers/readers that the garlic might be a little too much for some, but she likes garlic. Couldn’t agree with you more, Ree!
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Potatoes au Gratin dans les Muffin Tins
This is a very simple recipe a friend of mine told me about maybe two decades ago, and she saw it on a cooking competition show. So I’m ripping this off…second-hand? Third-hand? Hers is more elaborate but I barely remember 2019, let alone 2000, so this is what I do now, What was novel about it (for me) was that while the country was convulsed by Bush v. Gore I was far more interested in the concept of baking anything but muffins and cupcakes out of muffin tins, rather than a baking dish. Old hat now, but a sentimental favorite.
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6 small-is Yukon gold potatoes, washed
1 8 oz. container of heavy cream
About 8 oz. of Boursin cheese (buy more just in case, and it is the perfect cracker snack topping if you have extra.) Or go wild, get a supermarket version that has garlic and herbs in it. This is preferred because this is a little bland without some kind of seasoning. Boursin is actually a variety of cheese but there’s a company called Boursin that makes a garlic/herb version. This is like calling a company Cheddar. I doubt this brand is available in France.
A stalk of scallion, diced. You want about 1/4 cup of this. Cut off the white part at the bottom and dice from the bottom up. Avoid the top, too, but use it if you need to.
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Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Slice/USE YOUR MANDOLINE and cut your small Yukon potatoes into 1/4’ slices. No need to peel, that’s the beauty of this. You should have 36 slices.
Get out your 12-cup muffin tin. If it’s not non-stick, butter it a little bit. I have a non-stick silicone one that’s indestructible and easy to clean. A side note: When I came home with a bunch of silicone kitchenware, the muffin tin, a baking dish, other useful things, The Other Half asked me what I had bought. “A bunch of silicone because I—“ “Am thinking of getting breast implants?” “No, you idiot, it’s non-stick cookware. Jesus.”
In each cup place one of your potato slices. Carefully slice off a little bit of Boursin, preferably not much above room temperature. This is a pain in the ass. Using a small spoon scrape it off the knife and pat down so it forms a thin layer. You might have a set of measuring spoons so use the smallest one. I, because I am insane, and I am the first to admit it, have a set of long hot-fudge-sundae spoons with a tiny bowl at the end and THEY WERE ON SALE ALRIGHT? Do this for all 12 cups. Then, from the container, pour on a small splash of the cream. Again, potato, scrape in the Boursin, a little more cream. And again, potato, the Boursin, and a little more cream.
Now, unless I’ve failed you miserably your muffin cups should be almost full but not overflowing. Top each with a little of the scallion. Not too much because you don’t want a scallion layer, it’s more for effect, but it adds a slight flavoring.
Loosely cover in tin foil and put in the oven for 20 or 25 minutes. Uncover and leave it in there for 10 minutes more. They should be nice and golden brown, not milky white nor burnt, especially not the scallion.
Take this out and let it sit for at least five minutes. This is critical because you want the whole thing to set (cooking speak for “congeal,” which is a little too “cop drama where they find the gunshot victim and try to determine the course of events by the nearby trail of congealed blood”).
Now it’s time to serve. This is also a little tricky. Your little muffin tin monsters should be firm enough that you can take a dull knife, like a butter knife, and gently separate from the cups. Have a spoon handy because some of the interiors might be a little gluey, in which case do your best to lift with the knife and with the help of the spoon transfer to a waiting plate. But ideally they, like all of us, should stand on their own, at least while sober.
Ooh, that last one actually seems like a recipe I might attempt. Potatoes au gratin are generally too fussy for me to make but I do like to eat them. The muffin tin version has less steps, less dishes, less ingredients… I guess maybe I need a mandoline though. I have considered buying one before.
I cannot praise the mandoline highly enough. And they’re not expensive at all. They have settings, so if you need to slice something and the slices need to/should be consistent this is the way to go.
I’d like to try your way in an 8×8 with half the ingredients? Good or bad idea?
Oh, that would be fine. I think you might need slightly more than half the ingredients, and you probably wouldn’t bake it for so long.
Thank you! Nine potatoes just feels exhausting, but five! Five I can manage!
Thank you, Cousin M! I have seen the muffin tin version arranged in a rosette – very pretty.
I’ve made some of The Pioneer Woman’s recipes. They’re pretty good. But, she’s got nothing on you and @Elliecoo. New show idea – The Internet Man/Woman.
Now about that feature image, did Mickey Rooney have a restaurant, that specialized in potatoes?
I missed the edit window but want to add that all the FYCE contributors are kitchen wizards. And I’d put any of you up against the on air talent.
<3 @Hannibal, thank you, you are most kind. We can call it The Gentlemen Chefs of FYCE and I.
He most certainly did! If you know LA at all that location was in Sherman Oaks, just north of the Ventura Freeway (the 101) in the San Fernando Valley. When this restaurant was open that was suburban heaven. I bet it did quite well.
I had read that this ad was a parody, though Mickey did have some rather wacky businesses, including, I believe, at least one restaurant of some kind.
Oh my God, you’re right! This is a Reddit hoax. How long have I been online? And I fell for this?
However, you’re right, unless this is a hoax: He had a mini-chain called Mickey’s Weenie World, but who knows.
Sorry to have dumped even more fake news on top of the Rocky Mountains-size pile we’ve already accumulated over the last four years.
It’s a very fun hoax and doesn’t contribute to a pandemic so I will happily imagine ordering a baked potato with real bacon bits and extra sour cream alongside whatever steak Mickey recommends. And some of that grasshopper pie. Of course, I’d still leave a generous tip.
The thing that caught my eye was the “no tipping, ever” line. I hope that means Mickey was paying his servers a living wage.
These all sound really good! Before I cooked mostly dairy free, I tried making au gratin potatoes a few times, and they just never came out right. It’s one of the few things I make that always come out of a box!
These posts have reminded me of the potato dish that I make that’s only similar in that it’s sliced potatoes!
Oil the bottom of the baking dish. Line it with a layer of thinly sliced unpeeled potatoes. Add a layer of thinly siced onion. Lightly dust with salt and pepper. Add another layer of potatoes. Scatter thinly sliced garlic over that. More potatoes. More onion. Garlic salt and pepper. Top layer of potatoes. Give it a light spray of olive oil, cover with foil, bake til you can push a spoon into it. Take off the foil, pop it under the broiler for a few minutes to brown. Sometimes, I add a layer of thinly sliced kielbasa on top, so the fat soaks into the potatoes, which is even more delicious.
That sounds really good too, Smacks!
@HoneySmacks Oh I like this a lot! I’ll be trying this out for sure. What temp and how long does it usually take? Do the edges get crispy or no?
I think I’d add cheese on top too…
I want to say 350 or 375 for… probably 45 minutes? It doesn’t really get crispy around the edges, but if you cook it uncovered after the first 20 minutes, it might.
Good boy.
Regarding the Boursin cheese brand, they changed their recipe several years ago, by whipping it like crazy, so more air is in the cheese, which means selling less cheese for the same price, which means PROFITS BABY! It also made the texture total shit and generally just pissed me off so I stopped buying it. However, the fact that Boursin is an actual type of cheese was news to me, so I’ll have to see if I can find some.
Another set of winning recipes, by the way.
Well, I seem to have screwed this up too. Boursin was developed by a guy named Boursin in Normandy in the 1950s and is not one of the thousands of registered cheeses. Boursin is Boursin, he founded the company, and it comes with different flavorings. Two of my hoaxes exposed within a half an hour. But when I buy Boursin it doesn’t come in the same packaging that I’ve seen in other supermarkets, and was more expensive and richer than the party dip version…I don’t know, I give up. Rely on me for nothing. I wonder if Breitbart is hiring.
Where do you get your non-Boursin Boursin?
It must be from the same company, the name must be trademarked, just an upscale, better version, like how ubiquitous brands have various sub-categories.
I used to go into this small, “gourmet” grocery near an office I was freelancing in frequently. It went out of business, sadly, like so many other businesses in Manhattan in 2020. We’ll be lucky to have non-fast food restaurants left by the time the vaccine is widely adopted.
I’ve been pondering this. The only thing I can think of is that it was a French product, originally, they sold to a conglomerate, and maybe this grocery was getting the version they sell in France shipped in. I don’t think most French people would enjoy what’s on offer in the US.
If you think Boursin is too airy and insubstantial you could use an herbed goat cheese. That’s not hard to find. I think that’s what M. Boursin was doing in the 1950s anyway, but somehow packaged it on an industrial scale and saved people the bother of doing it themselves.
That’s pretty much what we’ve been doing, getting herbed cherve on those occasions when plain won’t do.
…I’m glad you cleared that up for me because I remember there being an ad I saw a few times back in the day with the strap line “du vin, du pain…du boursin” & I was wracking my brain to try & remember if I really had seen it in france like I thought or if was just a poncy way of flogging the stuff in the UK
Sorry Cousin Matthew, you can’t admit you made an honest mistake and work in right wing media!
@CousinMatthew your hoaxes must taste better than many people’s serious attempts at cooking.
I used to make a delicious (and lazy) creamy pasta sauce with this and one day it just wasn’t enough. Shrinkflation strikes again!
I like to make a lazy cream sauce with watered down mascarpone (and lemon juice and garlic).
Classic (original flavor) Boursin on Triscuits is AMAZEBALLS when one requires some Night Cheese!
Just putting that out there, for the fans of Night Chiz (or honestly, ANY-time-of-the-day Chiz😉😁🤗)
My husband recently asked if anyone actually likes Triscuits and I couldn’t believe such a question could even be thought up!
Triscuits are a PERFECT vehicle for Boursin, AND for a nice, crystally, sharp & aged cheddar (the black pepper & olive oil ones go EXCEPTIONALLY WELL with that good aged cheddar!😉)
What. Is he crazy? We always have triscuits in our house. The cracked pepper ones are the best. Triscuits and saltines are our cracker standbys.
Comments from the grounding in the cheap seats (who LOVES all things Chiz and po-tay-toes!!!)
1. FYI, Alouette is a POOR substitute for Boursin, and if you are used to both the brininess and subtle flavors of real Boursin, you WILL be sadly disappointed. (BUT, the real stuff goes on sale at Target, every few months, so you CAN stock up for the 1-2 months in between the sale times!😉)
2. THOU SHALT *NOT* DISRESPECT THE Russet! (😉);
They may be ubiquitous, and to some, blase, or “Exceedingly Mid-Century American,” but the Burbank Russet is a pretty phenomenal tuber;
Luther Burbank developed the original Russet as a way to help the Irish survive the famine.**
He was NOT a great person in some ways–primarily because he was a fan of Eugenics… but he did a LOT of good for the world, as just a rando–non scientist–guy who puttered around crossing plants in his gardens.
And the book about him is fascinating, if you like plant-geekery!
3. For the easiest way to prep garlic, get yourself a garlic grating plate!😉 they can be used for hard cheeses, ginger, and things like nutmeg, too!
You DON’T need the fancy brush, a silicone spatula will clean the plate well, too.
Also, garlic grating pro-tip; put a rubber/nitrile/plastic glove on your hand before picking up & grating the clove(s) of garlic, and your hand won’t smell for DAYS!😉
Cousin Matthew, I plan to make *some* version of your ‘taters this weekend.🤤😃🤗
I probably WILL substitute out the gruyere, though, for some good old-fashioned orange Midwestern-style cheddar/colby/ co-jack, though, since I have no gruyere on hand, AND “Traditional Midwestern Orange” is the main shade of chiz in my fridge😉
**the reason for the famine was Late Blight–it decimated the Lumper, which was Ireland’s most popularly-grown ‘tater.
I was not knocking the russet potato in any way! I was just trying to describe it because I can’t figure out how to load images (I supply a header image and a lovely and very patient dead splinter helper does it.) Russets are the work horses of the tuber diets.