Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Potato Gratin/Potato Bake sort-of-recipe

For those of you interested in making the potato thingy i made, here's the sort of recipe!
The reason why it's only a sort-of-recipe is because i did not use much measurements. I just added things according to how i liked it to be.

1) Boil 7-8 russet potatoes. Some people might find the russet variety too crumbly and soft so they use the harder yellow-er types.

2) Fry 2 (big) yellow onions in a shallow frying pan with olive oil, slow cook them, so that they don't burn and they should caramelize in the pan. Sprinkle a tiny bit of salt and pepper to taste.

3) After the potatoes are boiled and tender, de-skin them and scallop them. Grease an oven-safe glass dish with a bit of butter, so that the food doesn't stick. Line the bottom of the dish with the potatoes. Don't use up all of them.

4) I had some leftover cooked chicken chunks, so i layered them over the potatoes. I also added ham slices, add half of the previously fried onions.

5) I used something like 1 and a half containers of Bulla cream (350ml to 400ml), and added dollops of it, scattered among the meat, onions, etc. Don't use all of it yet. As and when you feel that some corners/portions are dry, just put some cream there. Added dollops of butter also, but not too much.

6) Slopped ready made packet french onion soup all over to flavour the dish. Add amount according to your own disgression. Similarly, if you find it a bit dry, you can slop some more. Up to you! Just keep in mind that as you add, you are adding more flavour/salt into your dish, so you want to mentally keep stock of what you are dumping into the dish so that when you finally eat it, you aren't overwhelmed with the taste of one particular ingredient.

7) Also throw in cheddar cheese. I added red cheese and the regular yellow one. However, make sure that you cut up the cheese into little pieces, so that when it melts, it melts out evenly and not in little lumps here and there.

(at this point, i would recommend adding some cubed green/red/yellow pepper. Reason being it's good to add some vegetable and it also adds a crunch to the dish. You can either fry it first with the yellow onion or if you want it a bit more raw, just add it as it is in this layer.)

8) I sprinkled a tiny amount of salt, but in this case, i did so because not many of the other ingredients were salty naturally, except for the cheese and ham. If your version has other stuff that is salty, then don't add anymore.

9) Once the middle portion is done with all the layering and stuff, put your final layer of potatoes and also the fried onions as the top layer of your potato bake. Add the rest of the cream too. Use a ladle to gentle press everything into the dish. After that, grab a pack of shredded mozeralla cheese and add a generous layer of cheese on top of the potatoes and onions.

10) Lastly, sprinkle a tiny amount of mixed herbs evenly, and also coarse black pepper.

11) Throw everything into the oven and wait for the mozeralla cheese to brown to the colour you want!

Hope this helps and doesn't sound too messy or complicated. It isn't complicated once you get your ingredients prepared really.

Ask me if you have any doubts! :-D

2 comments:

David Chen Weirong said...

Nice detailed recipe.. Sounds like a script for a cooking show ^_^
*
Had fun with the new oven yet? ;)

joline said...

WR:

heh heh heh. ;-D I can have me own cookin show? I'd love to throw things around like jamie oliver.