Winter Gratin

 

The other evening I was wanting to have something different for supper. Instead of the normally roast potatoes and sweet carrots on the side. After visiting my second best friend after google i had a little inspiration.

It is very simple, the ingredients are everyday ingredients. Plus it is a nice way to play around with some veggies. You can easily serve this as a main dish or on the side like i did with some lovely roasted chicken.  I recommoned using a mandolin to thinly slice all the vegetables.

The recipe called for double cream, I used normal cream and somehow think it wont make to much of a difference. I also had a little bit of gruyere cheese which i think finished it off nicely. But obviously its not essential.

Ingredients:

3 Medium Thinly Sliced Potatoes (almost wafer thin)

2 Leeks, washed and thinly sliced

3 plump garlic cloves , thinly sliced

2 sprigs of rosemary finely chopped 

250 ml cream (if you can find double cream then you can use instead)

150ml full-fat milk

350g carrots , sliced wafer thin

really good handful of parmesan cheese

15 ml dijion mustard

60 ml white wine (optional) I kind of add on a spur of the moment and think it made it extra special.

few knobs of butter

The Method Behind My Madness:

Preheat the oven to and butter a shallow ovenproof dish. Really important otherwise it will burn at the bottom.

 

Thinly slice your potatoes and layer them, then the mushrooms and leeks in the bottom of the dish with two of the sliced garlic cloves and sprinkle over a little salt and half the rosemary. It's best to keep the potatoes buried under the other vegetables because they go black if they are on top of the gratin.

Pour the cream and milk into a large saucepan, add the rest of the rosemary, mustard and garlic, the carrots and a little seasoning. Bring to the boil, then turn the heat to the lowest it will go and simmer for 3 minutes.

Pour the carrots and cream over the other vegetables, and spread the carrots out. I kept some extra potatoes and put them on top. Sprinkle over the parmesan, cover with foil and bake for 60 minutes, or until the potatoes and carrots are soft and tender.

Remove the foil and bake a further 10 - 20 minutes until golden and bubbly.

Thats it - a really simple dish that tastes absolutely amazing. I think this may go really well with Lamb Shanks, or Rib Eye Steak.