Potatoes · Recipe · Dauphiné · Reference page

Gratin dauphinois

Name: Gratin dauphinois
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 60 min
Total time: 90 min
Yield: 4
Ingredients: 800 g potatoes, peeled and sliced about 3 mm thick; 400 ml whole milk; 400 ml cream; 2 clove garlic, crushed in its skin (plus 1 halved clove to rub the dish); 1 sprig rosemary; 2 piece bay leaves; 2 sprig thyme; salt, freshly ground pepper and grated nutmeg; 15 g butter, for the dish

Thin slices of potato baked slowly in milk and cream in a dish rubbed with garlic and butter, until soft inside and golden on top. In the Dauphiné, cooks say eggs and cheese are forbidden. Quantities follow Jeroen Meus's recipe, without its cheese topping.

Editorial illustration of the documented recipe; not a photograph of a kitchen-tested result.

Servings: 4
Preparation: 30 min
Cooking: 1 h
Total: 1 h 30
Difficulty: Easy

Equipment

Mandoline or sharp knife
Ovenproof gratin dish (earthenware is traditional)
Saucepan and sieve

Servings4

Ingredients

800 gpotatoes, peeled and sliced about 3 mm thickMeus uses waxy potatoes; René Fonvieille, the Grenoble writer, preferred floury ones sliced 1.5 mm. Do not rinse the slices.
400 mlwhole milk
400 mlcream
2 clovesgarlic, crushed in its skin (plus 1 halved clove to rub the dish)
1 sprigsrosemary
2 bay leaves
2 sprigsthyme
salt, freshly ground pepper and grated nutmeg
15 gbutter, for the dish

Shopping list

Method

Heat the milk and cream gently with the crushed garlic, rosemary, bay and thyme, seasoned with pepper, salt and nutmeg. Let it get hot but not boil, so the herbs flavour it.
Why Infusing in hot milk avoids cutting raw garlic into the dish, and starting with hot liquid shortens the baking.
Heat the oven to 160 °C. Rub the dish with the cut garlic and brush it with melted butter.
Lay the potato slices in overlapping layers, like roof tiles, until the dish is two-thirds full.
Strain the hot milk and cream over the potatoes until they are just covered, with the top slices barely showing.
Bake for 30 minutes to an hour, until a knife slides through the slices easily and the top is golden. If the potatoes absorb all the liquid, add a little more milk or cream.
Why A moderate oven keeps the cream from splitting and lets the potato starch thicken it. Too hot, and the top burns before the slices beneath are cooked.
Timer · 45 min45:00

To drink & serve with

Editorial suggestion: a side for roast lamb, veal or a green salad.

Substitutions

Milk and cream → All crème fraîche, as in the Vercors 'true' gratin quoted by Lyon Capitale.
No cheese → Meus adds 150 g grated Emmental on top; Escoffier added Gruyère and an egg. Both are outside the Dauphiné tradition.

Common mistakes

Rinsing the slices: you wash off the starch that thickens the cream.
Adding eggs: they curdle into lumps, wrote René Fonvieille.
An oven that is too hot: the cream splits and the top burns.

Storage & reheating

Best fresh. Leftovers: refrigerate within 2 hours, eat within 2 days, reheat until steaming hot.

Safety

Contains milk.

Allergens

Milk

Check labels: stock, bacon and sauces can contain further allergens.

Dietary

vegetarian · gluten-free

Cheese or no cheese

The earliest archival mention of a gratin on a Dauphiné banquet menu, as Lyon Capitale reports, is a dinner on 12 July 1788 for the municipal officers of Gap, given in Grenoble by the province's military commander. The menu says "un gratin", not "gratin dauphinois", and how much older the peasant dish is cannot be shown.

What goes into it is argued even more. Escoffier's 1903 Gratin de pommes de terre à la Dauphinoise adds an egg and 125 g of Gruyère to the milk. Lyon Capitale's 2013 article gathers the Dauphiné's answer: René Fonvieille's rule of no eggs and no cheese, and the view that the gratin of the Quatre Montagnes in the Vercors contains only potatoes and crème fraîche in a garlic-rubbed, buttered dish. A local cook puts it bluntly: whoever adds cheese is making a Savoyard dish.

[1][2]

Starch does the thickening

Unrinsed slices release starch into the hot milk and cream, which thickens as it bakes. Jeroen Meus heats the liquid first with garlic, rosemary, bay and thyme and strains it over the potatoes, then bakes at a moderate 160 °C. Fonvieille brings the dish to the boil in a hot oven and then lowers it for three-quarters of an hour to an hour, topping up with milk if the potatoes drink it all.

[3][1]

How it connects

Place

origin Dauphiné In preparation

Potato

made with Bintje

Recipe

similar Tartiflette
similar Pommes Anna