Boulangere Potatoes

Cookbook Adventure #1 - "Du jour"

This cookbook is one of the most stylish in my collection. Gorgeous hardcover with beautiful layouts featuring metallic textured wax paper as dividers and "I wanna lick the page" food photos! The cover page says it all: "easy but glamorous recipes for every occasion".

I wanted to start off easy and this potato recipe caught my eye.  A different take on Potato Au Gratin (good for those who are lactose intolerant or are on a cream-free diet!).


Ingredients
400g royal blue potatoes
2 onions (I reduced this to one onion)
salt and pepper
300g chicken or vegetable stock (I used 1tbsp of the Vegetable Stock Concentrate from the Thermomix EDC p17 with 300g of water)
25g butter (replace with margarine for dairy free)


Method
Cut the potatoes into 2mm slices, keeping the best slices for the top.  Peel, halve and finely slice the onions.  Mix the onions and potatoes together and season with the salt and pepper.  Place in a well-buttered shallow oven-proof dish or roasting tin.  Barely cover with the stock.  Neatly arrange overlapping slices of potato on top.  Add several knobs of butter and place in a hot oven at 200C for about 20 minutes until lightly coloured. Reduce the heat to 170C and allow to cook steadily for about 40 minutes, pressing down the potato firmly from time to time with a fish slice (I only did this once and it still turned out fine).  When ready, all the stock should have been absorbed by the potato (I found it did take about 10 minutes longer for this to happen).

I was tempted to do the American thing and sprinkle it with grated cheese, but glad that I didn't as the kids loved eating the crispy ones on the top!  The slices inside were tasty and moist.  Definitely a recipe to make again!