Gratifyingly Good Gratin

Nigel Slater is a cookery writer I find both helpful and annoying. His prissy style gets right up my nose, but he has some excellent ideas. Reading his recipe for baked onions with miso nudged me to make something with onions prepared in the same way - boiled for 40 minutes till soft (he said 25 - 30). My version then diverted from his entirely. Halved across the equator the onions were placed cut side up in a gratin dish, moistened with a dash or six of vermouth, then covered with a heavily peppered gruyere-and-brown-breadcrumb mix, dotted with butter, and baked in a 190C oven for 25 minutes or so (until the top crisped and browned). Does anything smell more appetising than cooking cheese and onions?


The Dear Leader (eternal damnation to those who oppose her) and Sternest Critic both approved, though both later blamed the need to extinguish naked flames in the house on the alliums.


The gratin is one of those culinary joys that seem to have been pushed aside as old fashioned - 'so eighties darling [bro?].' As someone who is a dedicated follower of anti-fashion I prefer, greedily, to keep it in my ever-expanding kitchen vocabulary. Perhaps restaurants avoid them as needing too much checking on, and for the time it takes, though as with the example above you can often pre-cook the vegetables and just need to slide the dish in a hot oven to finish.


It is also a great way of making something substantial that costs very little - especially economic if the oven is used for something else as the same time (the onion gratin was followed by a fish pie of modest size). Some years ago I wrote a paid piece for a culinary website where a cheesy potato gratin was one of (I think) four dishes to feed a family, each with ingredients costing under £2. No cream in that one then, but a stock cube, some dried herbs and a couple of cloves of garlic make a decent moistening, an alternative to milk, and supermarket cheddar browns as nicely as posher gruyere. You can save on pre-cooking too if, like in one cooked last week by Sternest Critic, you slice the spuds and onions to see-through thickness.


That use of vermouth, by the way, is something I'd recommend. I sometimes buy a cheapo bottle just for used in cooking - it gives a herby flavour, keeps better than wine, and makes you feel somehow more generous - as I only had some rather high end Dollin to hand, doubly so then. And its pairing with gin is as sublime as cheese with onions.

Duck - no Grouse

When I invested in the Aldi Serrano ham I also bought and put in the freezer a stuffed duck that if memory serves cost £8.99. It was a standby, and a way of avoiding the shops as much as possible over the Christmas and New Year hols. I hate that mad crush, the irrational belief that the supermarkets may never open again, contrary to all experience and the message of major ad campaigns, so illogically you need to shop every day. 

It proved a luxurious bargain. With bread sauce (better than the version I made on Christmas Day), glazed carrots and a mash of spud and parsnip it was the basis of a good meal for four. But the bonus was the cereal-bowlful of duck fat that has since enriched several soups, and last night (a week on) made crispy golden cubes of potato. Only goose-fat can rival it for that quality of crisping stuff up. 

Half the bowl remains - a little goes a very long way, and it keeps for several weeks. So midweek we'll have a crispy potato gratin, not even needing cheese or onions, though I'll be tempted to slip some shavings of the enduring Serrano ham in there for interest and protein, and a thinly-sliced sliver or two or garlic. The spuds need to be cut as thinly as possible, probably on the blade on the grater, then fried quickly in the fat and tipped into a gratin dish and mixed with the garlic and ham to finish in a hot oven - it's done when it's brown on top. 

Served with a green salad or some home-made coleslaw and followed by the survivors from the box of Christmas mandarins it's a moderately healthy supper for pennies. Fewer than 250 pennies if you reckon on 60p of spuds, 2p of garlic, 50p of ham, 75p for the salad element (over-costed as a cos lettuce now £1 in the shops and half of one will suffice) and 50p for three mandarins. A bit more if I go for the slaw.

Over Christmas the most frequently spotted dish here was said coleslaw. There is a small bowlful in the fridge now. What can be easier than grating a big carrot and an apple, plus half a small onion for bite, cutting some white cabbage very finely, and mixing with Helmann's? We ate it alongside sarnies, with the inevitable (and wonderful) cold meat aftermath, and at a small party after New Year's Eve. We'll have more this week one way or another. By my reckoning a big bowlful costs say 10p for a carrot, 30p an apple, 30p for the cabbage, and 5p for the onion. Two big spoons of mayo runs to maybe 20p. So 95p for roughly five times the volume of a supermarket carton that costs more than that, and isn't as fresh by a long chalk. 

While the Oven's On - One Flame Again

Being a mean beast who cuts things very fine (Ratty in Wind in the Willows) I don't like to use the oven for just one thing, especially as ours is one of those with a double-sized space one side and a mini version (only ever used to warm plates) the other. So I try to remember to include a few unpeeled onions to give the makings of a simple onion with cheese veg dish, some beetroot, or baking potatoes, or most often a gratin.

The one-flame cookery idea easily incorporates such economy, as why should one flame mean on dish only? Saturday's party (very enjoyable thanks) included a 6lb brisket dry rubbed with spices and sugar roasted at about 120C for nearly eight hours. That would have been a profligate use of the oven had it been just for one dish. So I also did a big potato gratin, loads of onions, loads of cheddar, slow cooked for two and a half hours, and a toffee-crumb apple and quince pudding, conscious assuaged.

Gratins are such a simple thing to do as I was explaining to hopefully-soon-to-be student Sternest Critic. What they do need is time and thus patience. It's not something to throw together for a quick snack. And they can be very cheap filler-uppers. That was secondary in my thinking for the bonfire bash for which its forgiving nature was uppermost in my thoughts: it was ready a good half an hour before I took it out, but didn't spoil at all (if anything the cheese got a nicer browning) for being left longer, and could have remained at that heat without damage for another hour. Again it could have been cooked at 180C and been ready in less than half the time.

It's also the sort of cooking I love - no recipe, just a basic idea and method. If you have to weigh the ingredients for a gratin you're trying too hard. Just peeled and sliced spuds and onions (the latter very thin), grated cheese, layered onion-spud-cheese  then repeated, a bit of salt and pepper, and cooking liquid (hot) which can be milk, milk and cream, stock or at a real pinch just water. The alchemy of baking turns these basic staples into a meltingly delicious whole. We have lots of celeriac on our allotment, another grateful for the gratin treatment, and parsnip likewise, so I have no excuse for not doing more and bringing in more variations as autumn turns to winter.

Cheap Luxury Jacobean Style

My reading of the Jacobean lady housewife Elinor Fettiplace's receipt book sparked the idea for the starch accompaniment to yesterday's gammon. I had even thought this one through in advance, buying the sweet potatoes with such a dish in mind. I had not realised previously that the potatoes Raleigh brought over here were not the common spud, but said sweet potatoes.

Two huge tubers (cost 86p) were boiled whole for 15 minutes, then skinned - it just wrinkles off when pushed with the thumb. Sliced thickly they were put in a gratin dish into which was poured to come close to the top a mixture of hot ham stock, the juice of two oranges (rather sad overlooked specimens from the fruit-bowl), a tablespoon of rosewater, and a big lump of butter, all previously stirred together so the butter had time to melt. The surface was sprinkled with a little sugar, and the dish then cooked in the oven for about 45 minutes at 180C - until the top slices took a knife point easily, a question of judgement as they were slightly candied.

The colour was beautiful - I am not sure if the camera does it justice. The flavour too was excellent, a perfect match - contrast indeed - for the savoury-salty gammon.

A post some days back looked at the value in terms of nutrition and cheerfulness of colour in our food. This was the brightest thing we've eaten in weeks. And it had an almost restauranty touch of glamour and sophistication, the rosewater just a background hint to add extra interest.

Hilary Spurling suggested that modern American cooks do something not a million miles away from this at Thanksgiving Dinners, but never having attended one I cannot confirm that - if anyone reading this can offer confirmation and comment on that I'd be grateful.

Swiss Bliss

Swiss chard is something you hardly ever see in supermarkets - it tends to fade quite quickly, the bright green leaves look tired after a day and where the stem is cut turns an unappealing purply-black. So best to grow it yourself. More positive reasons to love the stuff are that once established it survives frosts and stands over the entire winter even in the wilds of Preston; you get two veg for the price of one - the leaves cooked like spinach, stems treated entirely differently; and the stems in particular have a pleasing sweet earthiness about them. Inevitably some cookbooks equate them to asparagus (along with a dozen other veg that taste nothing like the magic green sticks), but they have a fine flavour of their own.

Sunday's roast was followed by a gratin of the stems, cut into 2cm pieces and parboiled for five minutes. The  bechamel was flavoured with grated Parmesan which suited the sweetness of the chard, and in the post-roast oven browned nicely. It was almost a pudding -  if I'd used ground almonds in place of flour as a thickener it would have been even more like some medieval sweet-savoury offering.

It's always a good sign that nothing is left in the dish, but sadly this year we have grown very little chard - not for want of trying, the wet weather took its toll - so at most we can look forward to two more repeat servings now.

Whatever Happened to the Gratin?

The world of the celebrity chef, where everything seemingly has to be either fried before your eyes or include some odd/exotic ingredients, has to my mind seen the relegation of the gratin to the outer regions. Shame. A good potato gratin is a) tasty; b) cheap; c) easy to make. This is a good potato gratin.

Take four or five fist-sized spuds and slice about 3mm thick, then boil for no longer than three minutes and remove from the water. Fry two large onions sliced thinly until transparent. Grate 100g strong hard cheese - cheddar is ideal (and not mild for goodness' sake).

In an oven-proof dish put a layer of spuds, then of onion, and season well. Put on a small sprinkle of cheese, but save most for the top. Repeat until used up, finishing with a layer of spuds. Measure enough milk to cover all bar the very surface of the gratin, beat in an egg, then pour over. Finish with lots of grated cheese on top, and dot with a few dabs of butter. Cook in a hot oven (200C) until the top is browning. 

Served with a salad (and it doesn't have to be something green from a bag - make a salade de racines with matchsticks of carrot, turnip and beetroot dressed with a vinaigrette) and some bread to mop up the juices it makes a filling and enjoyable supper. And the gratin costs less than £2 with enough to fill four. Splash out by adding some strips of smoked bacon (use that thrifty standby 'recipe bacon' or offcuts from the butcher or butchery counter) to satisfy the carnivores. Instead of the milk and egg mixture use stock - chicken, ham or vegetable - from a cube or your own labours and it is even cheaper, though I prefer the milky version.