Boulangère potatoes

Boulangère potatoes

I forgot to take a photo of the
finished dish... sorry!

Usually if I was to make some sort of gratin with potatoes it would always be gratin dauphinoise as the mixture of cream, potatoes and garlic is truly one of the greatest dishes. However recently we had the neighbours round and I was serving a roast chicken with rich garlicky sauce to be followed by a very decadent chocolatey dessert, so I thought we should have something less artery clogging. It was incredibly yummy to the point that Mr Neighbour and lovely fiancé were fighting over the last scrapings of the dish.

The name comes from boulangerie, (french bakery) as it is meant to be like a baguette with its very crispy top revealing an incredibly soft underneath.

Boulangère potatoes

Serves 4

75g butter

1kg floury potatoes, such as maris piper

1 medium onion

400ml Stock (preferably chicken, but vegetable would also work)

Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 170ºC.

Butter an oven-proof dish with half the butter. Peel the potatoes and onions and slice as finely as you can, I would recommend using a mandolin for this. Make a layer of potatoes over the bottom of the dish with the discs overlapping, follow by a layer of onion and a good grinding of fresh pepper and salt. Repeat layering potato, onion, seasoning, ending on a layer of potatoes.

Press it all down firmly. Pour on the stock slowly, you may not need all of it, you want all the potatoes to be submerged but only just. Dot with the remaining butter then bake in the oven for about 2 hours until all the stock has been absorbed by the potatoes, the top is crispy and potatoes are tender.