Pommes de terre au gratin, also known as gratin dauphinois, is a classic of French cuisine that my mom used to do at least once a week. She would sometime do the same recipe with onions -that was more or less ok, or cauliflower which we really hated. The potato dish was clearly a winner.
Ingredients:
butter & garlic clove for greasing pan
Around 2 1/2 lbs. potatoes, sliced thinly (a mandolin will make your life easier)
2 shallots or one onion, thinly sliced
salt & pepper, grated nutmeg optional
3 tbs. butter
3 tbs. flour (I used a 50/50 mix of white and brown rice flour)
1 cup chopped chives, optional
2 cups milk (I used 2%)
1 1/2 cups grated gruyere (best, and also the cheapest in France), but I can't afford it here so I use "Swiss" cheese (really, there's no such thing) when I find it on special, or even cheaper no name mozzarella
Optional chives for garnish
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400F
2. Grease shallow baking dish with butter and garlic
3. Arrange half the potato slices in a circular arrangement at the bottom of the pan. Then scatter slices of onion, and then layer the rest of the potato slices. Season with salt & pepper and grated nutmeg, to taste. I love nutmeg with this, quiches, and omelettes.
4. In a medium pan, melt butter and mince your garlic clove. Once melted, whisk in the flour and chives and keep whisking for another minute or so. Then add in milk, and wait for it to thicken (this won’t take long at all, keep stirring!).
5. Once mixture is thickened a bit, add in all of your cheese while stirring.
6. Pour the cheesy mixture over your potatoes, cover with foil, and bake in the oven a good hour. Once the potatoes are cooked and soft, removed the foil, and turn the oven grill on so that they browned nicely. watch to make sure it doesn't burn.
Serve with a green salad with a simple French vinaigrette (olive oil and red wine vinegar, a bit of Dijon mustard, salt and pepper).
I also love Pommes de terre a la provencale, which is a simple potato salad served warm, with as much as chopped parsley and garlic as you want, and lots of olive oil. Salt and pepper to taste. The same ingredients can be turned into Pommes de terre a la lyonnaise by roasting/frying half-cooked boiled potato cut in half-inch cubes in olive oil, then tossing in the rest of the ingredients.