Dauphinoise Potatoes

For the carbs part of the dinner party, I decided to make Dauphonoise potatoes. I've had it in restaurants and it's always been wonderfully tasty and I've always thought I really should try making it at home.

Well, despite its simplicity, this dish is fiddly. And I didn't have the proportions, having noted down the definition from Larousse Gastronomique.

Ingredients

6 large jacket potatoes
750 ml single cream
2 cloves garlic
salt and pepper

Method

1. Peel and slice the potatoes thinly. Best use a food processor for this.


2. Butter a deep oven-proof dish.


3. Place the cream in a bowl, peel and press in the garlic, then season so that it's a bit on the salty side.


4. Lay one layer of the potato slices to cover the bottom of the dish completely. Then drizzle a bit of the cream mixture.
   


5. Lay another single layer of potatoes and drizzle with cream, then continue until the potatoes are slightly above the edge of the baking dish. If there's any cream left, distribute it over the potatoes. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C.


6. Cover the dish with cling film and place something heavy on top to press down the potatoes. Keep an eye out, because it might overflow. A few minutes of the pressure is enough.


7. Place in the oven and bake for 2.5 h, or until the potatoes are cooked through. If the top layer starts burning, cover with aluminium foil.

The slicer attachment of the Kitchen Assistent machine made a very easy job of this and as it turned out, the potatoes filled the baking dish perfectly, but I didn't keep watch during the pressurising and so I ended up with a big cream puddle under it.



I think I fitted about 8 or 9 layers in total, I didn't count, but they were many. And so, it took a long time to bake even though the potatoes were quite thin. A gorgeous smell of garlic spread through the kitchen and I briefly did toy with the idea of having a nibble, but no, this was for the dinner party.