Gratin Jurassien (Scalloped Potatoes with Heavy Cream and Cheese) are definitely not headed for distinction. This recipe is another definite winner and will be made again. And again. And again. Easy to make and wonderful to eat. You know, these potatoes are a great example of why Julia Child must have liked French food so much. Be warned though, this one take about an hour and 15 minutes in the oven so be sure you've got some time to bake this nice and slow.
Once again, since Julia has given permission, I was able to speed up the preparation of this dish but putting our food processor to work to slice the potatoes. The longest part of the preparation was peeling the 2 pounds of potatoes needed but I'm getting to be a pretty good potato peeler. Fingertips and knuckles had all their skin intact when I finished so I'm making progress! I'm afraid no disasters befell me this time so I'm just going to give you a quick rundown on how to make these.
The assembly goes quickly, and I could probably have done it even quicker if I wasn't being a bit OCD by trying to arrange the potato slices in nice neat and symmetrical rows. I used a 9x13 pyrex baking dish that had been smeared with a layer of butter (of course). The bottom was covered with a layer of potatoes and then that layer was seasoned with a sprinkling of salt and pepper plus a thin layer of shredded Swiss cheese and some small dots of butter. That process was repeated with a couple more potato layers with the same seasonings, cheese, and butter dots. I used a bit more shredded cheese on the top layer than on the first few potato layers. Then 1 1/4 cups of heavy cream was poured evenly over the entire top.
Everything was then baked in the oven at only 300 degrees for 1 1/4 hours. Julia gave me a warning that I needed to monitor the dish while baking to make sure to and adjust the heat as needed "so that the cream never quite bubbles." Mine didn't. Be careful if you make this, I don't know what will happen if there are bubbles but I'm sure it will be something reallllllly horrendous. The magical part of this baking process is that the slices of potato were soaking up the cream while they were baking and they transformed into layers of scrumptiousness. That's all there was to preparing it -- the photo at the top shows the transformation made while baking. The next transformation was when we ate dinner and everyone was coming back for seconds.
Speaking of dinner, I need to make a shout out to my sous chef, Kathryn. She prepared a wonderful batch of bruschetta to go along with our dinner (complete menu: Bruschetta, Supremes de Volaille Archiduc, Gratin Jurassien, and white grape juice - see photo below). Always entertaining, it was fun watching Kathryn cook -- she makes a lot of sound effects and dances around the kitchen. Not real dancing but there is a lot of motion when she's trying to flip contents of the pan -- in this case it was the slices of bread she was toasting in the frying pan. She's growing up too fast, turns 16 next week, so it is fun to have her cooking and learning to prepare some of the dishes I've made. Somehow I'm pretty sure Julia never imagined that I, or anyone like me would actually be teaching my daughter (and an occasional stranger) how to cook something.
Sous chefs are wonderful additions to the kitchen and helped make this a special and complete dinner. Thanks, Kathryn!
Gratien Jurassien - good with chicken, lamb, turkey veal beef, or pork. As long as you are boiling some squid for dinner you'll probably have a good excuse to try this with one of your upcoming dinners. I may just try this with our upcoming Thanksgiving dinner! In any case...
Bon Appetit
Part of a complete meal. Wonderful to come home to and even more wonderful to eat.